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THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  FAILURES 


A  STUDY  OF  THE  SCHOOL  RECORDS  OF  PUPILS 

FAILING  IN  ACADEMIC  OR  COMMERCIAL 

HIGH  SCHOOL  SUBJECTS 


By 
FRANCIS  P.  OBRIEN.  Ph.D. 


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THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  FAILURES 


A  STUDY  OF  THE  SCHOOL  RECORDS  OF  PUPILS 

FAILING  IN  ACADEMIC  OR  COMMERCIAL 

HIGH  SCHOOL  SUBJECTS 


By 
FRANCIS  P.  OBRIEN,  Ph.D. 


SOUTHERN  BRANCH, 

UNIVERSIIY  OF  CALIFORNIA, 
LIBRARY, 

iLQIB  ANGELES,  CALIF. 


■,  » 


TEACHERS  COLLEGE,  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY 
CONTRIBUTIONS  TO  EDUCATION.  NO.  102 


44903 


PUBLISHED  BY 

Ulfarl|rr0  QluUpgr.  (Columbia  llniurraitg 

NEW  YORK  CITY 

1919 


Copyright,  1919,  by  Francis  P.  OBrien 


SRLF 
URt 

6  1^ 


PREFACE 

Grateful  acknowledgment  is  due  the  principals  of  each  of  the 
high  schools  whose  records  are  included  in  this  study,  for  the 
courteous  and  helpful  attitude  which  they  and  their  assistants 
manifested  in  the  work  of  securing  the  data.  Thanks  are  due 
Dr.  John  S.  Tildsley  for  his  generous  permission  to  consult  the 
records  in  each  or  any  of  the  New  York  City  high  schools.  But 
the  fullest  appreciation  is  felt  and  acknowledged  for  the  ready 
criticism  and  encouragement  received  from  Professor  Thomas  H. 
Briggs  and  Professor  George  D.  Strayer  at  each  stage  from  the 
inception  to  the  completion  of  this  study. 

F.  P.  O. 


Ill 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I. — The  General  Introduction  of  the  Subject 

1.  The  Relevance  of  This  Study  1 

2.  The  Meaning  of  Failure  in  This  Study  3 

3.  Scope  and  Content  of  the  Field  Covered  4 

4.  Sources  of  the  Data  Employed  6 

5.  Selection  and  Reliability  of  These  Sources  8 

6.  Summary  of  Chapter,  and  References  11 

II. — How  Extensive  are  the  Failures  of  the  High  School 

Pupils? 

1.  A  Distribution  of  All  Entrants  in  Reference  to  Failure  12 

2.  The  Later  Distribution  of  the  Pupils  by  Semesters  14 

3.  The    Distribution   of   the   Failures  —  by   Ages   and   by 

Semesters  14 

4.  Distribution  of  the  Failures  by  Subjects  19 

5.  The  Pupils  Dropping  Out— Time  and  Age  24 

6.  Summary  of  Chapter,  and  References  27 

III. — What    Basis    is    Discoverable    for    a    Prognosis  of 
the  Occurrence  or  the  Number  of  Failures? 

1.  Some  Possible  Factors — Attendance,  Mental  and  Physical 

Defects,  Size  of  Classes  29 

2.  Employment  of  the  School  Entering  Age  for  the  Purpose 

of  Prognosis  ^^ 

3.  The  Percentage  of  Failure  at  Each  Age  on  the  Possibility 

of  Failures  for  That  Age  36 

4.  The  Initial  Record  in  High  School  37 

5.  Prognosis  of  Failure  by  Subject  Selection  39 

6.  The  Time  Period  and  the  Number  of  Failures  40 

7.  Similarity  of  Facts  for  Boys  and  Girls  45 

8.  Summary  of  Chapter,  and  References  45 


vi  Contents 

PAGE 

IV. — How     Much     is     Graduation     or    the    Persistence 

IN  School  Conditioned  by  the  Occurrence 

OR  BY  the  Number  of  Failures? 

1.  Comparison  of  the  Failing  and  the  Non-faiHng  Groups 

in  Reference  to  Graduation  and  Persistence  48 

2.  The  Number  of  Failures  and  the  Years  Required  to 

Graduate  49 

3.  The  Number  of  Failures  and  the  Semesters  of  Dropping 

Out,  for  Non-graduates  51 

4.  The  Percentages  That  the  Non-graduate  Groups  Form  of 

the  Pupils  Who  Have  Each  Successively  Higher  Num- 
ber of  Failures  55 

5.  Time  Extension  for  the  Failing  Graduates  56 

6.  Summary  of  Chapter,  and  References  57 

V. — Are   the    School   Agencies    Employed   in   Remedying 
THE  Failures  Adequate  for  the  Purpose? 

1.  Repetition  as  a  Remedy  for  Failures  60 

a.  Size  of  Schedule  and  Results  of  Repeating. 

b.  Later  Grades  in  the  Same  Kind  of  Subjects,  Following 

Repetition  and  Without  it. 

c.  The  Grades  in  Repeated  Subjects  and  in  New  Work. 

d.  The  Number  and  Results  of  Identical  Repetitions. 

2.  Discontinuance  of  the  Subject  or  Course,  and  the  Substi- 

tution of  Others  68 

3.  The  Employment  of  School  Examinations  69 

4.  The  Service  Rendered  by  the  Regents'  Examinations  in 

New  York  70 

5.  Continuation  of   Subjects  Without  Repetition   or   Ex- 

amination 73 

6.  Summary  of  Chapter,  and  References  74 

VI. — Do  THE    Failures    Represent  a  Lack  of  Capability 

OR  OF  Fitness  for  High  School  Work  on 

THE  Part  of  Those  Pupils  ? 

1.  Some  Are  Evidently  Misfits  76 

2.  Most   of  the   Failing   Pupils   Lack  Neither  Ability  nor 

Earnestness  77 


Contents  vii 

PAGE 

3.  The  School  Emphasis  and  the  School  Failures  Are  Both 

Culminative  in  Particular  School  Subjects  81 

4.  An    Indictment   Against   the    Subject- Matter   and   the 

Teaching  Ends  as  Factors  in  Producing  Failures  83 

5.  Summary  of  Chapter,  and  References  85 

VII. — What    Treatment    is    Suggested   by   the   Diagnosis 
OF  the  Facts  of  Failure? 

1.  Organization  and  Adaptation  in  Recognition  of  the  In- 

dividual Differences  in  Abilities  and  Interests  87 

2.  Faculty  Student  Advisers  from  the  Time  of  Entrance  89 

3.  Greater  Flexibility  and  Differentiation  Required  90 

4.  Provision  for  the  Direction  of  the  Pupils'  Study  92 

5.  A  Greater  Recognition  and  Exposition  of  the  Facts  as 

Revealed  by  Accurate  and  Complete  School  Records  94 

6.  Summary  of  Chapter,  and  References  96 


A    STUDY    OF    THE    SCHOOL    RECORDS    OF    THE 
PUPILS  FAILING   IN  ACADEMIC  OR  COM- 
MERCIAL HIGH    SCHOOL  SUBJECTS 

CHAPTER  I 

GENERAL  INTRODUCTION  OF  THE  SUBJECT 

L     The  Relevance  of  This  Study 

As  the  measuring  of  the  achievements  of  the  pubHc  schools 
has  become  a  distinctive  feature  of  the  more  recent  activities  in 
the  educational  field,  the  failure  in  expected  accomplishment  by 
the  school,  and  its  proficiency  in  turning  out  a  negative  product, 
have  been  forced  upon  our  attention  rather  emphatically.  The 
striking  growth  in  the  number  of  school  surveys,  measuring 
scales,  questionnaires,  and  standardized  tests,  together  with  many 
significant  school  experiments  and  readjustments,  bears  testimony 
of  our  evident  demand  for  a  closer  diagnosis  of  the  practices  and 
conditions  which  are  no  longer  accepted  with  complacency. 

The  American  people  have  expressed  their  faith  in  a  scheme 
of  universal  democratic  education,  and  have  committed  them- 
selves to  the  support  of  the  free  public  high  school.  They  have 
been  liberal  in  their  financing  and  strong  in  their  faith  regarding 
this  enterprise,  so  typically  American,  to  a  degree  that  a  sec- 
ondary education  may  no  longer  be  regarded  as  a  luxury  or  a 
heritage  of  the  rich.  No  longer  may  the  field  be  treated  as 
either  optional  or  exclusive.  The  statutes  of  several  of  our  states 
now  expressly  or  impliedly  extend  their  compulsory  attendance 
requirements  beyond  the  elementary  years  of  school.  Many,  too, 
are  the  lines  of  more  desirable  employment  for  young  people 
which  demand  or  give  preference  to  graduates  of  a  high*  school. 
At  the  same  time  there  has  been  no  decline  in  the  importance  of 
high  school  graduation  for  entering  the  learned  or  professional 
pursuits.     Accordingly,  it  seems  highly  probable  that,  with  such 

1 


2     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

an  extended  and  authoritative  sphere  of  influence,  a  stricter 
business  accounting  will  be  exacted  of  the  public  high  school,  as 
the  great  after-war  burdens  make  the  public  less  willing  to  de- 
pend on  faith  in  financing  so  great  an  experiment.  They  will 
ask,  ever  more  insistently,  for  facts  as  to  the  expenditures,  the 
finished  product,  the  internal  adjustments,  and  the  waste  product 
of  our  secondary  schools.  Such  inquiries  will  indeed  seem 
justifiable. 

It  is  estimated  that  the  public  high  schools  had  84  per  cent  of 
all  the  pupils  (above  1,500,000)  enrolled  in  the  secondary  schools 
of  the  United  States  in  1916.^  The  majority  of  these  pupils  are 
lost  from  school — whatever  the  cause — before  the  completion  of 
their  courses ;  and,  again,  the  majority  of  those  who  do  graduate 
have  on  graduation  ended  their  school  days.  Consequently,  it 
becomes  more  and  more  evident  how  momentous  is  the  influence 
of  the  public  high  school  in  conditioning  the  life  activities  and 
opportunities  of  our  youthfvil  citizens  who  have  entered  its 
doors.  Before  being  entitled  to  be  considered  a  "  big  business 
enterprise,"^  it  seems  imperative  that  our  "  American  High 
School  "  must  rapidly  come  to  utilize  more  of  business  methods 
of  accounting  and  of  efficiency,  so  as  to  recognize  the  tremendous 
waste  product  of  our  educational  machinery. 

The  aim  of  this  study  is  to  trace  as  carefully  and  completely 
as  may  be  the  facts  relative  to  that  major  portion  of  our  high 
school  population,  the  pupils  who  fail  in  their  school  subjects, 
and  to  note  something  of  the  significance  of  these  findings.  If 
we  are  to  proceed  wisely  in  reference  to  the  failing  pupils  in  the 
high  school,  it  is  admittedly  of  importance  that  such  procedure 
should  be  based  on  a  definite  knowledge  of  the  facts.  The  value 
of  such  a  study  will  in  turn  be  conditioned  by  the  scrupulous 
care  and  scientific  accuracy  in  the  securing  and  handling  of  the 
facts.  It  is  believed  that  the  causes  of  and  the  remedies  for 
failure  are  necessarily  closely  linked  with  factors  found  in  the 
school  and  with  the  school  experiences  of  failing  pupils,  so  that 
the  prqblem  cannot  be  solved  by  merely  labeling  such  pupils  as 
the  unfit.  There  is  no  attempt  in  this  study  to  treat  all  failures 
as  in  any  single  category.  The  causes  of  the  failures  are  not 
assumed  at  the  start  nor  given  the  place  of  chief  emphasis,  but 
are  regarded  as  incidental  to  and  dependent  upon  what  the  evi- 


General  Introduction  of  the  Subject  3, 

dence  itself  discloses.  The  success  of  the  failing  pupils  after 
they  leave  the  high  school  is  not  included  in  this  undertaking, 
but  is  itself  a  field  worthy  of  extended  study.  Even  our  knowl- 
edge of  what  later  happens  to  the  more  successful  and  the  gradu- 
ating high  school  pupils  is  limited  mainly  to  those  who  go  on  to 
college  or  to  other  higher  institutions.  One  of  the  more  familiar 
attempts  to  evaluate  the  later  influence  of  the  high  school  illus- 
trates the  fallacy  of  overlooking  the  process  of  selection  involved, 
and  of  treating  its  influence  in  conjunction  with  the  training  as 
though  it  were  the  result  of  school  training  alone. ^ 

2.   The  Meaning  of  '  Failure  '  in  This  Study 

The  term  '  failure  '  is  employed  in  this  study  to  signify  the 
non-passing  of  a  pupil  in  any  semester-subject  of  his  school 
work.  The  school  decision  is  not  questioned  in  the  matter  of  a 
recorded  failure.  And  although  it  is  usually  understood  to  ne- 
gate "  ability  plus  accomplishment,"  it  may,  and  undoubtedly 
does,  at  times  imply  other  meanings,  such  as  a  punitive  mark,  a 
teacher's  prejudice,  or  a  deferred  judgment.  The  mark  may  at 
times  tell  more  about  the  teacher  who  gave  it  than  about  the  pupil 
W'ho  received  it.  These  peculiarities  of  the  individual  teacher 
or  pupil  are  pretty  well  compensated  for  by  the  large  number  of 
teachers  and  of  pupils  involved.  The  decisive  factor  in  this 
matter  is  that  the  school  refuses  to  grant  credit  for  the  work 
pursued.  The  failure  for  a  semester  seems  to  be  a  more  adapt- 
able unit  in  this  connection  than  the  subject-failure  for  a  year. 
However,  it  necessitates  the  treatment  of  the  subject-failure  for 
a  year  as  equivalent  to  a  failure  for  each  of  the  two  semesters. 
Tw^o  of  the  schools  involved  in  this  study  (comprising  about  11 
per  cent  of  the  pupils)  recorded  grades  only  at  the  end  of  the 
year.  It  is  quite  probable  that  the  marking  by  semesters  would 
actually  have  increased  the  number  of  failures  in  these  schools, 
as  there  are  many  teachers  who  confess  that  they  are  less  willing 
to  make  a  pupil  repeat  a  year  than  a  semester. 

By  employing  this  unit  of  failure,  the  failures  in  the  different 
subjects  are  regarded  as  comparable.  Since  only  the  academic 
and  commercial  subjects  are  considered,  and  since  they  are  al- 
most uniformly  scheduled  for  four  or  five  hours  a  week,  the 


4     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

failures  will  seem  to  be  of  something  near  equal  gravity  and  to 
represent  a  similar  amount  of  non-performance  or  of  unsatis- 
factory results.  There  were  also  a  few  failures  included  here 
for  those  subjects  which  had  only  three  hours  a  week  credit, 
mainly  in  the  commercial  subjects.  But  failures  were  unnoted 
when  the  subject  was  listed  for  less  than  three  hours  a  week. 

There  are  certain  other  elements  of  assumption  in  the  treat- 
ment of  the  failures,  which  seemed  to  be  unavoidable.  They  are, 
first,  that  failure  in  any  subject  is  the  same  fact  for  boys  and  for 
girls ;  second,  that  failures  in  different  years  of  work  or  with 
different  teachers  are  equivalent ;  third,  that  failures  in  elective 
and  in  required  subjects  are  of  the  same  gravity.  It  was  found 
practically  impossible  to  differentiate  required  and  elective  sub- 
jects, however  desirable  it  would  have  been,  for  the  subjects  that 
are  theoretically  elective  often  are  in  fact  virtually  required,  the 
electives  of  one  course  are  required  in  another,  and  on  many  of 
the  records  consulted  neither  the  courses  nor  the  electives  are 
clearly  designated. 

3.   The  Scope  and  Content  of  the  Field  Covered 

As  any  intensive  study  must  almost  necessarily  be  limited  in 
its  scope,  so  this  one  comprises  for  its  purposes  the  high  school 
records  for  6,141  pupils  belonging  to  eight  different  high  schools 
located  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey.  For  two  of  these  schools 
the  records  for  all  the  pupils  that  entered  are  included  here  for 
five  successive  years,  and  for  their  full  period  in  high  school. 
In  two  other  schools  the  records  of  all  pupils  that  entered  for 
four  successive  years  were  secured.  In  four  of  the  schools  the 
records  of  all  pupils  who  entered  in  February  and  September  of 
one  year  constituted  the  number  studied.  There  is  apparently 
no  reason  to  believe  that  a  longer  period  of  years  would  be  more 
representative  of  the  facts  for  at  least  three  of  these  four  schools, 
in  view  of  the  situation  that  they  had  for  years  enjoyed  a  con- 
tinuity of  administration  and  that  they  possess  a  well-established 
organization.  The  fourth  one  of  these  schools  had  less  com- 
plete records  than  were  desired,  but  even  in  that  the  one  year 
was  representative  of  the  other  years'  records.  The  distribution 
of  the  6,141  pupils  by  schools  and  by  years  of  entering  high 
school  is  given  below. 


General  Introduction  of  the  Subject  5 

High  School  Pupils  Entering  High  School  Number 

IN :  IN  the  Years  Studied 

White  Plains,  N.  Y.  1908,  '09,  '10,  '11,  '12                       659 

Dunkirk,  N.  Y.  1909,  '10,  '11,  '12                              370 

Mount  Vernon,  N.  Y.  1912  224 

Montclair,  N.  J.  1908,  '09,  '10,  '11,  '12                       946 

Hackensack,  N.  J.  1909,  '10,  '11,  '12  736 

Elizabeth,  N.J.  1912  333 

Morris  H.  S.— Bronx  1912  1712 

Erasmus  Hall  H.  S.— Brooklyn  1912  1161 

Total  6141 

As  it  is  essential  for  the  purposes  of  this  study  to  have  the 
complete  record  of  the  pupils  for  their  full  time  in  the  high 
school,  the  6,141  pupils  include  none  who  entered  later  than  1912. 
Thus  all  were  allowed  at  least  five  and  one-half  or  six  years  in 
which  to  terminate  their  individual  high  school  history,  of  suc- 
cesses or  of  failures,  before  the  time  of  making  this  inquiry  into 
their  records.  No  pupils  who  were  transferred  from  another 
high  school  or  who  did  not  start  with  the  class  as  beginning  high 
school  students  were  included  among  those  studied.  Post-grad- 
uate records  were  not  considered,  neither  was  any  attempt  made 
to  trace  the  record  of  drop-outs  who  entered  other  schools. 
Manifestly  the  percentage  of  graduation  would  be  higher  in  any 
school  if  the  recruits  from  other  schools  and  the  drop-backs  from 
other  classes  in  the  school  were  included. 

No  attempt  has  been  made  to  trace  the  elementary  school  or 
college  records  of  the  failing  pupils,  for  our  purpose  does  not 
reach  beyond  the  sphere  of  the  high  school  records.  In  refer- 
ence to  the  differentiation  by  school  courses,  some  facts  were  at 
first  collected,  but  these  were  later  discarded,  as  the  courses 
represent  no  standardization  in  terminology  or  content,  and  they 
promised  to  give  nothing  of  definite  value.  As  might  be  expected, 
the  schools  lacked  agreement  or  uniformity  in  the  number  of 
courses  offered.  One  school  had  no  commercial  classes,  as  that 
work  was  assigned  to  a  separate  school ;  another  school  offered 
only  typewriting  and  stenography  of  the  commercial  subjects;  a 
third  had  placed  rather  slight  emphasis  on  the  commercial  sub- 
jects until  recently.  Only  four  of  the  schools  had  pupils  in 
Greek.  The  Spanish  classes  outnumbered  the  Greek  both  by 
schools  and  by  enrollment.  In  the  classification  by  subjects, 
English  is  made  to  include  (in  addition  to  the  usual  subjects  of 


6     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

that  name)  grammar,  literature,  and  business  English.  Mathe- 
matics includes  all  subjects  of  that  class  except  commercial  arith- 
metic, which  is  treated  as  a  commercial  subject,  and  shop-mathe- 
matics, which  is  classed  as  non-academic.  Industrial  history, 
and  *  political  and  social  science  '  are  regarded  along  with  aca- 
demic subjects;  likewise  household  chemistry  is  included  with 
the  science  classification.  Economics  is  treated  as  a  commercial 
subject.  At  least  a  dozen  other  subjects,  not  classified  as  aca- 
demic or  commercial,  including  also  spelling  and  penmanship, 
were  taken  by  a  portion  of  these  pupils,  but  the  records  for  these 
subjects  do  not  enter  this  study  in  determining  the  successful 
and  failing  grades  or  the  sizes  of  schedule.  Yet  it  is  true  that 
such  subjects  do  demand  time  and  work  from  those  pupils. 

4.     Sources  of  the  Data  Employed 

The  only  records  employed  in  this  whole  problem  of  research 
were  the  official  school  records.  No  questionnaires  were  used, 
and  no  statements  of  pupils  or  opinions  of  teachers  as  such  were 
sought.  The  facts  are  the  most  authoritative  and  dependable 
available,  and  are  the  very  same  upon  which  the  administrative 
procedure  of  the  school  relative  to  the  pupil  is  mainly  dependent. 
The  individual,  cumulative  records  for  the  pupils  provided  the 
chief  source  of  the  facts  secured.  These  school  records,  as 
might  be  expected,  varied  considerably  as  to  the  form,  the  size, 
the  simplicity  in  stating  facts,  and  the  method  of  filing;  but  they 
were  quite  similar  in  the  facts  recorded,  as  well  as  in  the  com- 
pleteness and  care  with  which  the  records  were  compiled.  It 
may  be  added  that  only  schools  having  such  records  were  included 
in  the  investigation. 

After  the  meanings  of  symbols  and  devices  and  the  methods 
of  recording  the  facts  had  been  fully  explained  and  carefully 
studied  for  the  records  of  any  school,  the  selection  of  the  pupil 
records  was  then  made,  on  the  basis  of  the  year  of  the  pupils' 
entrance  to  the  school,  including  all  the  pupils  who  had  actually 
entered  and  undertaken  work.  (Pupils  who  registered  but  failed 
to  take  up  school  work  were  entirely  disregarded.)  These  indi- 
vidual records  were  classified  into  the  failing  and  the  non-failing 
divisions,  then  into  graduating  and  non-graduating  groups,  with 


General  Introduction  of  the  Subject  7 

the  boys  and  girls  differentiated  throughout.  As  fast  as  the 
records  were  read  and  interpreted  into  the  terms  required  they 
were  transcribed,  with  the  pupils'  names,  by  the  author  himself, 
to  large  sheets  (16x20)  from  which  the  tabulations  were  later 
made.  There  was  always  an  opportunity  to  ask  questions  and 
to  make  appeals  for  information  either  to  the  principal  himself 
or  to  the  secretary  in  charge  of  the  records.  This  tended  to 
reduce  greatly  the  danger  of  mistakes  other  than  those  of  chance 
error.  The  task  of  transcribing  the  data  was  both  tedious  and 
prolonged.  This  process  alone  required  as  much  as  four  weeks 
for  each  of  the  larger  schools,  and  without  the  continued  and 
courteous  cooperation  of  the  principals  and  their  assistants  it 
would  have  been  altogether  impossible  in  that  time. 

Some  arbitrary  decisions  and  classifications  proved  necessary 
in  reference  to  certain  facts  involved  in  the  data  employed  in 
this  study.  All  statements  of  age  will  be  understood  as  applying 
to  within  the  nearest  half  year ;  that  is,  fifteen  years  of  age  will 
mean  within  the  period  from  fourteen  years  and  a  half  to  fifteen 
years  and  a  half.  The  classification  in  the  following  pages  by 
school  years  or  semesters  (half-years)  is  dependent  upon  the 
time  of  entrance  into  school.  In  this  sense,  a  pupil  who  entered 
either  in  September  or  in  February  is  regarded  as  a  first  semester 
pupil,  however  the  school  classes  are  named.  As  promotions  are 
on  a  subject  basis  in  each  of  the  schools  there  is  no  attempt  to 
classify  later  by  promotions,  but  the  time-in-school  basis  is  re- 
tained. In  reference  to  school  marks  or  grades,  letters  are  here 
employed,  although  four  of  the  eight  schools  employ  percentage 
grading.  Whether  the  passing  mark  is  60,  as  in  some  of  the 
schools,  or  70,  as  in  others,  the  letter  C  is  used  to  represent  one- 
third  of  the  distance  from  the  failing  mark  to  100  per  cent ;  B 
is  used  to  represent  the  next  third  of  the  distance ;  and  A  is  used 
to  express  the  upper  third  of  the  distance.  The  plus  and  minus 
signs,  attached  to  the  gradings  in  three  of  the  schools,  are  dis- 
regarded for  the  purposes  of  this  study,  except  that  when  D+ 
occurred  as  a  conditional  passing  mark  it  was  treated  as  a  C. 
Otherwise  D  has  been  used  to  signify  a  failing  grade  in  a  subject, 
which  means  that  the  grade  is  somewhere  below  the  passing 
mark.  The  term  '  graduates  '  is  meant  to  include  all  who  grad- 
uate, either  by  diploma  or  by  certificate.     Any  statement  made 


8     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

in  the  following  pages  of  '  time  in  school '  or  of  time  spent  for 
'  securing  graduation  '  will  not  include  as  a  part  of  such  period 
a  semester  in  which  the  pupil  is  absent  all  or  nearly  all  of  the 
time,  as  in  the  case  of  absence  due  to  illness. 

5.  The  Selection  and  Reliability  of  These  Sources  of  Data 

By  employing  data  secured  only  from  official  school  records 
and  in  the  manner  stated,  this  study  has  been  limited  to  those 
schools  that  provide  the  cumulative  pupil  records,  with  continuity 
and  completeness,  for  a  sufficient  period  of  years.  Some  schools 
had  to  be  eliminated  from  consideration  for  our  purposes  because 
the  cumulative  records  covered  too  brief  a  period  of  years.  In 
other  schools  administrative  changes  had  broken  the  continuity 
of  the  records,  making  them  difficult  to  interpret  or  undepend- 
able  for  this  study.  The  shortage  of  clerical  help  was  the  reason 
given  in  one  school  for  completing  only  the  records  of  the  gradu- 
ates. In  addition  to  the  requirements  pertaining  to  records,  only 
publicly  administered  and  co-educational  schools  have  been  in- 
cluded among  those  whose  records  are  used.  It  was  also  con- 
sidered important  to  have  schools  representing  the  large  as  well 
as  the  small  city  on  the  list  of  those  studied.  Since  many  schools 
do  not  possess  these  important  records,  or  do  not  recognize  their 
value,  it  is  quite  probable  that  the  conditions  prescribed  here 
tended  to  a  selection  of  schools  superior  in  reference  to  system- 
atic procedure,  definite  standards,  and  stable  organization,  as 
compared  to  those  in  general  which  lack  adequate  records. 

The  reliability  and  correctness  of  these  records  for  the  schools 
named  are  vouched  for  and  verbally  certified  by  the  principals 
as  the  most  dependable  and  in  large  part  the  only  information 
of  its  kind  in  the  possession  of  the  schools.  In  each  of  these 
schools  the  principals  have  capable  assistants  who  are  charged 
with  the  keeping  of  the  records,  although  they  are  aided  at  times 
by  teachers  or  pupils  who  work  under  direction.  In  three  of  the 
larger  schools  a  special  secretary  has  full  charge  of  the  records, 
and  is  even  expected  to  make  suggestions  for  revisions  and  im- 
provements of  the  forms  and  methods.  In  view  of  such  facts 
it  seems  doubtful  that  one  could  anywhere  find  more  dependable 
school  records  of  this  sort.     It  was  true  of  one  of  the  schools 


General  Introduction  of  the  Subject  9 

that  the  records  previous  to  1909  proved  to  be  unreliable.  There 
is  no  inclination  here  to  deny  the  existence  of  defects  and  limita- 
tions to  these  records,  but  the  intimate  acquaintance  resulting 
from  close  inquiry,  involving  nearly  every  factor  which  the  rec- 
ords contain,  is  convincing  that  for  these  schools  at  least  the 
records  are  highly  dependable. 

However,  there  is  some  tendency  for  even  the  best  school 
records  to  understate  the  full  situation  regarding  failure,  while 
there  is  no  corresponding  tendency  to.  overstate  or  to  record  fail- 
ures not  made.  Not  infrequently  the  pupils  who  drop  out  after 
previously  failing  may  receive  no  mark  or  an  incomplete  one  for 
the  last  semester  in  school.  Although  a  portion  or  all  of  such 
work  may  obviously  merit  failure,  yet  it  is  not  usually  so  re- 
corded. In  a  similar  manner  pupils  who  remain  in  school  one 
or  two  semesters  or  less,  but  take  no  examinations  and  receive 
no  semester  grades,  might  reasonably  be  considered  to  have 
failed  if  they  shunned  examinations  merely  to  escape  the 
recording  of  failures,  as  sometimes  appears  to  be  the  case 
when  judged  from  the  incomplete  grades  recorded  for  only 
a  part  of  the  semester.  A  few  pupils  will  elect  to  '  skip ' 
the  regular  term  examination,  and  then  repeat  the  work  of 
that  semester,  but  no  failures  are  recorded  in  such  instances. 
Some  teachers,  when  recording  for  their  own  subjects,  prefer 
to  indicate  a  failure  by  a  dash  mark  or  by  a  blank  space  until 
after  the  subject  is  satisfied  later,  and  the  passing  mark  is  then 
filled  in.  One  school  indicates  failure  entirely  by  a  short  dash 
in  the  space  provided,  and  then  at  times  there  occurs  the  *  cond  ' 
(conditioned)  in  pencil,  apparently  to  avoid  the  classification  as 
a  failure  by  the  usual  sign.  One  finds  some  instances  of  a  '  ? ' 
or  an  '  inc '  (incomplete)  as  a  substitute  for  a  mark  of  failure. 
Again,  where  there  is  no  indication  of  failure  recorded,  the  dates 
accompanying  the  grades  for  the  subjects  may  tell  the  tale  that 
two  semesters  were  required  to  complete  one  semester's  work  in 
a  subject.  Some  of  these  situations  were  easily  discernible,  and 
the  indisputable  failures  treated  as  such  in  the  succeeding  tabu- 
lations ;  but  in  many  instances  this  was  not  possible,  and  partial 
statement  of  these  cases  is  all  that  is  attempted. 

How  far  these  selected  schools,  their  pupils,  and  the  facts 
relating  to  them  are  representative  or  typical  of  the  schools,  the 


10    School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

pupils,  and  the  same  facts  for  the  states  of  New  Jersey  and  New 
York,  cannot  be  definitely  known  from  the  information  that  is 
now  available.  It  seems  indisputable,  however,  that  the  schools 
concerned  in  this  study  are  at  least  among  the  better  schools  of 
these  two  states.  If  we  may  feel  assured  that  the  6,141  pupils 
here  included  are  fairly  and  generally  representative  of  the  facts 
for  the  eight  schools  to  which  they  belong  and  which  had  an 
enrollment  of  14,620  pupils  in  1916;  and  if  we  are  justified  in 
classing  these  schools  as  averaging  above  the  median  rank  of  the 
schools  for  these  states,  then  the  statistical  facts  presented  in  the 
following  pages  may  seem  to  be  a  rather  moderate  statement 
regarding  the  failures  of  high  school  pupils  for  the  states  re- 
ferred to.  It  must  be  noted  in  this  connection,  however,  that  it 
is  not  unlikely  that  such  schools,  with  their  adequate  records, 
will  have  the  facts  concerning  failure  more  certainly  recorded 
than  will  those  whose  records  are  incomplete,  neglected,  or  poorly 
systematized. 

A  partial  comparison  of  the  teachers  is  possible  between  the 
schools  represented  here  and  those  of  New  York  and  New  Jersey. 
More  than  four  hundred  teachers  comprised  the  teaching  staff 
for  the  6,141  pupils  of  the  eight  schools  reported  here.  Of  these 
about  40  per  cent  were  men,  while  the  percentage  of  men  of  all 
high  school  teachers  in  New  Jersey  and  New  York*  was  about 
38  for  the  year  1916.  The  men  in  these  schools  comprised  50 
per  cent  of  the  teachers  in  the  subjects  which  prove  most  difficult 
by  producing  the  most  failures,  and  they  were  more  frequently 
found  teaching  in  the  advanced  years  of  these  subjects.  It  is 
not  assumed  here  that  men  are  superior  as  high  school  teachers, 
but  the  endeavor  is  rather  to  show  that  the  teaching  force  was 
by  its  constitution  not  unrepresentative.  It  may  be  added  here 
that  few  high  schools  anywhere  have  a  more  highly  selected 
and  better  paid  staff  of  teachers  than  are  found  in  this  group  of 
schools.  It  is  indeed  not  easy  to  believe  that  the  situation  in 
these  eight  selected  schools  regarding  failure  and  its  contributing 
factors  could  not  be  readily  duplicated  elsewhere  within  the  same 
states. 


General  Introduction  of  the  Subject  11 

A  Summary  of  Chapter  I 

The  American  people  have  a  large  faith  in  the  public  high 
school.  It  enrolls  approximately  84  per  cent  of  the  secondary- 
school  pupils  of  the  United  States.  High  school  attendance  is 
becoming  legally  and  vocationally  compulsory.  The  size  of  the 
waste  product  demands  a  diagnosis  of  the  facts.  This  study 
aims  to  discover  the  significant  facts  relative  to  the  failing  pupils. 

Failure  is  used  in  the  unit  sense  of  non-passing  in  a  semester 
subject.     Failures  are  then  counted  in  terms  of  these  units. 

This  study  includes  6,141  pupils  belonging  to  eight  different 
high  schools  and  distributed  throughout  two  states.  The  cumu- 
lative, official,  school  records  for  these  pupils  formed  the  basis 
of  the  data  used. 

The  schools  were  selected  primarily  for  their  possession  of 
adequate  records.  More  dependable  school  records  than  those 
employed  are  not  likely  to  be  found,  yet  they  tend  to  understate 
the  facts  of  failure.  It  is  quite  possible  that  a  superior  school, 
and  one  with  a  high  grade  teaching  staff,  is  actually  selected  by 
the  requirements  of  the  study. 

References: 

1.  Annual  Report  of  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education  for  1917. 

2.  Josslyn,  H.  W.    Chapter  IV,  in  Johnson's  Modern  High  School. 

3.  The  Money  Value  of  Education.     Bulletin  No.  22,  1917,  United  States 

Bureau  of  Education. 

4.  New  York  and  New  Jersey  State  School  Reports  for  1917. 


CHAPTER  II 

HOW  EXTENSIVE  ARE  THE  FAILURES  OF  THE  HIGH 
SCHOOL  PUPILS? 

1.  A  Distribution  of  All  Entrants  in  Reference  to  Failure 

With  no  purpose  of  making  this  a  comparative  study  of 
schools,  the  separate  units  or  schools  indicated  in  Chapter  I  will 
from  this  point  be  combined  into  a  composite  and  treated  as  a 
single  group.  It  becomes  possible,  with  the  complete  and  tabu- 
lated facts  pertaining  to  a  group  of  pupils,  after  their  high  school 
period  has  ended,  to  get  a  comprehensive  survey  of  their  school 
records  and  to  answer  such  questions  as:  (1)  What  part  of  the 
total  number  of  boys  or  of  girls  have  school  failures?  (2)  To 
what  extent  are  the  non-failing  pupils  the  ones  who  succeed  in 
graduating?  (3)  To  what  extent  do  the  failing  pupils  with- 
draw early?  The  following  tabulation  will  show  how  two  of 
these  questions  are  answered  for  the  6,141  pupils  here  reported  on. 


All  Entrants 

Failing 

All  Graduates 

Failing 

Totals....     6,141 

Boys 2,646 

Girls 3,495 

3,573  (58.2%) 
1,645  (62.1%) 
1,928  (55.1%) 

1,936 

796 

1.140 

1,125  (58.1%) 
489  (61.4%) 
639  (55.8%) 

From  this  distribution  we  readily  compute  that  the  percentage 
of  pupils  who  fail  is  58.2  per  cent  (boys — 62.1,  girls — 55.1). 
But  this  statement  is  itself  inadequate.  It  does  not  take  into 
account  the  808  pupils  who  received  no  grades  and  had  no  chance 
to  be  classed  as  failing,  but  who  were  in  most  cases  in  school 
long  enough  to  receive  marks,  and  a  portion  of  whom  were  either 
eliminated  earlier  or  deterred  from  examinations  by  the  expecta- 
tion of  failing.  It  seems  entirely  safe  to  estimate  that  no  less 
than  60  per  cent  of  this  non-credited  number  should^  be  treated 
as  of  the  failing  groups  of  pupils.  Then  the  percentage  of  pupils 
to  be  classed  as  failing  in  school  subjects  becomes  66  per  cent 
(boys — 69.6,  girls— 63.4). 

12 


Hozv  Extensive  are  the  Failures?  13 

In  considering  the  second  inquiry  above,  we  find  from  the 
preceding  distribution  of  pupils  that  58.1  per  cent  (boys — 61.4, 
girls — 55.8)  of  all  pupils  that  graduate  have  failed  in  one  or  more 
subjects  one  or  more  times.  This  percentage  varies  from  34  per 
cent  to  72)  per  cent  by  schools,  but  in  only  two  instances  does  the 
percentage  fall  below  50  per  cent,  and  in  one  of  these  two  it  is 
almost  50  per  cent. 

We  may  now  ask,  when  do  the  failing  and  the  non-failing  non- 
graduates  drop  out  of  school?  Of  the  total  number  of  non- 
graduates  (4,205),  there  are  2,448  who  drop  out  after  failing 
one  or  more  times,  and  1,757  who  drop  out  without  failing.  The 
cumulative  percentages  of  the  non-graduates  in  reference  to 
dropping  out  are  here  given. 

Cumulative  Percentages  of  the  Failing  Non-Graduates 

AS  They  Are  Lost  by  Semesters 

lost  by 

end  of  semester       123456789 

Percent 14.1    33.9    46.4    64.9    72.9    85.2    91.9    97.6    99.1 

Cumulative  Percentages  of  Non-Failing  Non-Graduates 

as  They  Are  Lost  by  Semesters 

lost  by 

END  OF  semester       123456789 

Percent 61.1    78.0    85.9    92.1    94.5    98.4    99.5     

Briefly  stated,  the  above  percentages  assert  that  more  than 
three  fourths  of  those  who  neither  fail  nor  graduate  have  left 
school  by  the  end  of  the  first  year,  while  only  33.9  per  cent  of 
those  non-graduates  who  fail  have  left  so  early.  More  than  50 
per  cent  of  the  failing  non-graduates  continue  in  school  to  near 
the  end  of  the  second  year.  By  that  time  about  90  per  cent  of 
the  non-failing  non-graduates  have  been  lost  from  school.  By  a 
combination  of  the  above  groups  we  get  the  percentages  of  all 
non-graduates  lost  by  successive  semesters. 

Cumulative  Percentages  of  All  Non-Graduates 

Lost  by  Successive  Semesters 

lost  by 

end  of  semester  12345678 

Percent 33.7    53.4    62.6    76.2    81.9    90.7    94.0    98.6 

These  percentages  of  non-graduates  indicate  that  more  than 
50  per  cent  of  those  who  do  not  graduate  are  gone  by  the)  end 


14     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

of  the  first  year,  but  that  there  are  a  few  who  continue  beyond 
four  years  without  graduating. 

2.  The  Later  Distribution  of  Pupils  by  Semesters 

Consideration  is  here  given  to  the  number  of  the  total  entrants, 
remaining  in  school  for  each  successive  semester,  and  then  to 
the  accompanying  percentages  of  failure  for  each  group.  The 
following  figures  show  the  rapid  decline  in  numbers. 

The  Persistence  of  Pupils  in  School,  by  Semesters 
end  of  semester         12  3  4  5  6    Graduate 

6,141  (Total) 4,723      3,893     3,508     2,935     2,697     2,234       1,936 

Percentages 76.9      63.4      57.1      47.8      43.9      36.4        31.5 

As  was  pointed  out  in  Section  3  of  Chapter  I,  the  above 
group  does  not  include  any  increment  to  its  own  numbers  by 
means  of  transfer  from  other  classes  or  schools.  We  find,  ac- 
companying this  reduction  in  the  number  of  pupils,  which  shows 
more  than  50  per  cent  gone  by  the  end  of  the  second  year  in 
school,  that  there  is  no  corresponding  reduction  in  the  percentage 
of  pupils  failing  each  semester  on  the  basis  of  the  number  of 
those  in  school  for  that  semester. 

Percentage  of  Pupils  Failing  of  the  Pupils  in  School 
For  That  Period 

Semesters 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8 

Percent 34.2    37.3    38.5    40.2    38.2    37.1    30.0    24.0 

There  is  no  difficulty  in  grasping  the  simple  and  definite  sig- 
nificance of  these  figures,  for  they  tell  us  that  the  percentage  of 
pupils  failing  increases  for  the  first  four  semesters,  slightly  de- 
clines for  two  semesters,  with  a  greater  decline  for  two  more 
semesters.  These  percentages  of  failures  are  based  on  the  num- 
ber of  pupils  enrolled  at  the  beginning  of  the  semester,  and  are 
accordingly  lower  than  the  facts  would  really  warrant  since  that 
number  is  in  each  case  considerably  reduced  by  the  end  of  the 
same  semester. 

3.   The  Distribution  of  Failures 

That  the  failures  are  widely  distributed  by  semesters,  by  ages^ 
and  for  both  boys  and  girls,  is  shown  in  Table  I. 


How  Extensive  are  the  Failures? 


15 


TABLE   I 

The  Distribution  of  Failures  According  to  the  Age  and  the  Semester 
^  OF  Their  Occurrence* 


AGES 

undis- 

SEM 

2  J 

13  14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20  21 

22 

tributed  TOTALS 

1  B. 

0  20  321 

650 

575 

167 

34 

16 

2  .. 

10 

1795 

G. 

1 

19  356 

813 

611 

236 

67 

3 

0  .. 

13 

2119 

3914 

2  B.  . 

2  95 

423 

534 

256 

57 

27 

4  .. 

5 

1403 

G.  . 

6  99 

483 

589 

280 

91 

5 

0  .. 

7 

1560 

2963 

3  B.  . 

0  17 

267 

443 

363 

96 

22 

5  0 

2 

1215 

G. 

1  28 

318 

548 

317 

99 

15 

0  2 

1 

1329 
2544 

4  B.  . 

5 

101 

437 

403 

169 

32 

7  2 

5 

1161 

G.  . 

4 

102 

475 

425 

160 

39 

6  2 

6 

1219 
2380 

5  B. 

1 

19 

195 

377 

214 

61 

13  3 

6 

889 

G.  . 

0 

15 

277 

438 

212 

60 

15  0 

3 

1020 
1909 

6  B.  . 

4 

70 

322 

326 

99 

33  3 

6 

863 

G.  . 

9 

117 

407 

349 

78 

33  4 

3 

1000 
1863 

7  B.  . 

1 

0 

17 

155 

227 

106 

16  4 

1 

4 

531 

G.  . 

0 

2 

14 

200 

299 

127 

38  0 

0 

3 

683 
1214 

8  B.  . 

0 

42 

173 

109 

49  2 

5 

380 

G.  . 

2 

58 

244 

140 

49  10 

3 

506 

886 

9  B.  . 

0 

31 

32 

18  1 

82 

G.  . 

4 

.39 

67 

31  5 

146 

228 

10  B.  . 

1 

16 

9  3 

0 

29 

G.  . 

3 

13 

10  3 

1 

30 

59 

Sum-  B. 

D  2 

2  440 

1464 

2271 

2085 

1328  520 

156  18 

1 

43 

8348 

mary  G. 

1  2 

6  487 

1742  2633  2365 

1563  547 

182  26 

1 

39 

9612 

17.960 

*  The  expression  of  the  above  facts  in  terms  of  percentages  for  each  age  group  was  found 
to  be  difficult,  since  failures  and  not  pupils  are  designated.  But  the  total  failures  for  each 
age  group  are  expressed  (on  p.  36)  as  percentages  of  the  entire  number  of  subjects  taken 
by  these  pupils  for  the  semesters  in  which  they  failed.  Such  percentages  increase  as  the 
ages  rise.  A  similar  statement  of  the  percentages  of  failure  by  semesters  will  be  found 
on  p.  41. 


Table  I  reads:  the  boys  had  20  faihires  and  the  girls  had  19 
failures  in  the  first  semester  and  at  the  age  of  thirteen ;  in  the 
second  semester,  at  the  age  of  thirteen,  the  boys  had  2  failures 
and  the  girls  6.  For  each  semester,  the  first  line  represents 
boys,  the  second  line  girls.  There  is  a  total  of  17,960  failures 
listed  in  this  table.  In  addition  to  this  number  there  are  1,947 
uncompleted  grades  for  the  failing  non-graduates.     The  semes- 


16  School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 


TABLE  II 
The  Distribution  of  Failures  According  to  the  Ages  and  the  Semes- 


ters OF  Their  Occurrence  for  the  Graduating  Pupils 


13   14   15   16 


6 
7 
8 
9 
10 


B. 
G. 

B. 
G. 

B. 
G. 

B. 
G. 

B. 
G. 

B. 
G. 

B. 
G. 

B. 
G. 

B. 
G. 

B. 
G. 


66   84 
68  123 


60 
68 


30   95   96 
25  119  121 


6  108 
15  101 


98 
158 


ages 

17 

5 
23 

41 
30 

71 

78 


18   19  20   21  22   TOTALS 


54  157  107 
45  186  143 


10 
9 

4 
2 

0 
2 


82  142 
145  187 


2 

4 

3 
11 

22 
20 

36 
51 

82 


34  158  139 

70  235  178 

10  115  140 

7  130  187 


31  122 
45  150 


24 
32 

1 
3 


3 
0 

2 
2 

1 
5 

6 

7 

17 
22 

32 

40 

65 
69 

65 
95 

23 

40 

11 
12 


3 
0 

0 
2 

4 
9 

9 
13 

4 
19 

25 
37 

13 

24 

5 
6 


220 
290 

267 
309 

309 
378 

364 
435 

341 
460 

378 
539 

340 

414 

245 
331 

61 
100 

20 
22 


510 


576 


687 


799 


801 


917 


754 


576 


161 


Sum-  B. 
mary  G. 


. .  108  355  537  670  571  225 
6  109  401  757  875  724  292 


63  15 
110   4 


1  2545 
0  3278 


42 


5823 


In  the  facts  which  are  involved  and  in  the  manner  of  reading  them,  this  table  is  similar 
to  Table  I.  The  mode  of  the  distribution  of  totals  for  the  ages  is  at  17  in  this  table, 
Further  reference  will  be  made  to  both  Tables  I  and  11  in  later  chapters  of  this  study. 
(Seepages  36,  37,  41,  42). 

ters  were  frequently  completed  by  such  pupils  but  the  records 
were  left  incomplete.  Their  previous  records  and  their  pros- 
pects of  further  partial  or  complete  failure  seem  to  justify  an 
estimate  of  55  per  cent  (1,070)  of  these  uncompleted  grades  as 
either  tentative  or  actual  but  unrecorded  failures.  Therefore  we 
virtually  have  1,070  other  failures  belonging  to  these  pupils 
which  are  not  included  in  Table  I.  Accordingly,  since  the 
number  can  orily  be  estimated,  the  fact  that  they  are  not  in- 


How  Extensive  are  the  Failures?  17 

corporated  in  that  table  suggests  that  the  information  which  it 
discloses  is  something  less  than  a  full  statement  of  the  school 
failures  for  these  pupils.  In  the  distribution  of  the  totals  for 
ages,  the  mode  appears  plainly  at  16,  but  with  an  evident 
skewness  toward  the  upper  ages.  The  failures  for  the  years  16, 
17,  and  18,  when  added  together,  form  68.1  per  cent  of  the  total 
failures.  If  those  for  15  years  are  also  included,  the  result  is 
86  per  cent  of  the  total.  Of  the  total  failures,  65.7  per  cent  are 
found  in  the  first  two  years  (11,801  out  of  the  total  of  17,960). 
But  the  really  striking  fact  is  that  34.3  per  cent  of  the  failures 
occur  after  the  end  of  the  first  two  years,  after  52.2  per  cent  of 
the  pupils  are  gone,  and  with  other  hundreds  leaving  in  each 
succeeding  semester  before  even  the  end  of  the  eighth.  In 
Table  II  we  have  similar  facts  for  the  pupils  who  graduate. 
A  further  analysis  of  the  failures  is  here  made  in  reference 
to  the  number  of  pupils  and  the  number  of  failures  each. 

TABLE  III 

A  Distribution  of  Failing  Pupils  According  to  the  Number  of  Failures 
PER  Pupil,  in  Each  Semester 


Si 

SEMESTERS 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7    8 

9 

10 

totals 

1 

B. 

459 

430 

375 

352 

271 

221 

157  113 

22 

11 

2411 

G. 

561 

535 

428 

421 

328 

261 

167  123 
32.5% 

35 

__9 

2868 
5279 

2 

B. 

271 

242 

211 

206 

149 

144 

79   68 

19 

4 

1393 

G. 

271 

253 

238 

204 

177 

142 

127  84 

17 

6 

1519 

34.9% 

2912 

3 

B. 

144 

106 

81 

73 

59 

60 

45   27 

6 

2 

603 

G. 

207 

103 

81 

75 

75_ 

83 

52   38 

20 

_3 

737 

35.% 

1340 

4 

B. 

83 

39 

33 

30 

27 

32 

10   10 

1 

1 

266 

G. 

95 

50 

38 

35 

27 

39 

19   19 

3 

_0 

325 

31.8% 

591 

5 

B. 

6 

3 

5 

8 

7 

8 

7    2 

0 

46 

G. 

3 

2 

6 

5 

1_ 

10 

6    5 

55.3% 

1 

39 
85 

6 

B. 
G. 

3 

3 

0_ 

1 

1  ... 

— 

8 

25.%" 

8 

Tot 

:.  B. 

963 

820 

708 

672 

513 

466 

299  220 

48 

18 

4727 

G. 

1137 

943 

791 

740 

608 

535 

371  269 

76 

18 

5488 

10.215 


18    School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

Table  III  tells  us  that  459  boys  and  561  girls  have  one  failure 
each  in  the  first  semester  of  their  high  school  work;  271  boys 
and  the  same  number  of  girls  have  two  failures  in  the  first  se- 
mester, and  so  on,  for  the  ten  semesters  and  for  as  many  as  six 
failures  per  pupil.  The  failures  represented  by  these  pupils  give 
a  total  of  17,960.  A  distribution  of  the  total  failures  per  pupil, 
and  the  facts  relative  thereto,  will  be  considered  in  Chapter  IV 
of  this  study. 

The  above  distribution  of  Table  III  is  repeated  here  in  Table 
IV,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  the  failing  graduates  only. 

TABLE  IV 

A  Distribution  of  the  Failing  Pupils  Who  Graduate,  According  to 
^       THE  Number  of  Failures  per  Pupil  in  Each  Semester 


Sl 

semesters 

2  < 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7    8 

9 

10 

TOTALS 

1   B. 
G. 

110 
136 

131 
142 

137 
181 

150 
200 

162 
197 

139 

180 

120  118 

121  89 

19 
20 

11 
3 

1097 
1269 

2   B. 
G. 

34 
49 

10 
16 

49 
64 

10 
9 

61 
63 

14 

14 

69 
86 

18 
13 

61 
81 

75 
73 

50% 
47   28 
81   62 

15 

10 

3 
5 

2366 
442 
574 

3   B. 
G. 

12 
27 

17 
43 

53.2% 
27   17 
30   20 

4 
16 

1 
3 

1016 
130 
191 

4   B. 
G. 

3 
2 

2 
3 

2 
6 

3 
6 

4 
5 

8 
16 

67.6% 
6    5 
9   12 

0 
3 

321 
33 

62 

5   B. 
G. 

0 
1 

2 
0 

1 
0 

0 

4 

71.6% 
3   0 
1    2 

95 
6 
8 

6   B. 
G. 

"o 

1 
0 

78,6% 
1 

14 
2 
0 

Tot.B. 
G. 

157 
203 

192 
218 

214 
265 

237 
305 

240 
310 

240 
316 

100% 
204  163 
242  185 

48 
49 

15 
11 

2 

1710 
2104 

3814 

This  table  reads  similarly  to  Table  III.  There  is  not  the  ele- 
ment of  continuous  dropping  out  to  be  considered,  as  in  Table 
III,  until  after  the  sixth  semester  is  passed,  for  no  pupils  graduate 
in  less  than  three  years.  The  failures  represented  in  this  table 
number  5,823.  This  same  distribution  will  be  the  subject  of 
further  comment  later  on.  It  discloses  some  facts  that  Table 
III  tends  to  conceal,  for  instance,  that  the  greater  number  of 


Hozv  Extensive  are  the  Faihircsf  19 

graduating  pupils  who  have  2,  3,  4,  5,  and  6  failures  in  a  semester 
are  found  after  the  end  of  the  second  year. 

4.   Distribution  of  the  Failures  in  Reference  to  the  Sub- 
jects IN  Which  They  Occur 

The  following  tabulation  of  failures  will  show  how  they  were 
shared  by  both  boys  and  girls  in  each  of  the  school  subjects 
which  provided  the  failures  here  listed. 

Number  of  Failures  Distributed  by  School  Subjects 


Total 

Math. 

Eng. 

Latin 

Ger. 

Fr. 

Hist. 

Sci. 

Bus. 
Subj's. 

Span,  or 
Greek 

B.  8348 
G.  9612 

2015 
2300 

1555 
1424 

1523 
1833 

917 
812 

473 
588 

571 
1036 

850 
1013 

424 
593 

20 
13 

Percent 
of  Total 

24.1 

16.5 

18.7 

9.6 

5.9 

8.9 

10.3 

5,6 

.2 

The  abbreviated  headings  above  will  be  self-explanatory  by 
reference  to  section  3  of  Chapter  L  The  first  line  of  numbers 
gives  the  failures  for  the  boys,  the  second  line  for  the  girls. 
Mathematics  has  24.1  per  cent  of  all  the  failures  for  all  the 
pupils.  Latin  claims  18.7  per  cent  and  English  16.5  per  cent  of 
all  the  failures.  These  three  subjects  make  a  total  of  nearly  60 
per  cent  of  the  failures  for  the  nine  subject  groups  appearing 
here.  But  still  this  is  only  a  partial  statement  of  the  facts  as 
they  are,  since  the  total  enrollment  by  subjects  is  an  independent 
matter  and  far  from  being  equally  divided  among  all  the  subjects 
concerned.  The  subject  enrollment  may  sometimes  be  relatively 
high  and  the  percentage  of  failure  for  that  subject  correspond- 
ingly lower  than  for  a  subject  with  the  same  number  of  failures 
but  a  smaller  enrollment.  This  fact  becomes  quite  apparent 
from  the  following  percentages  taken  in  comparison  with  the 
ones  just  preceding: 

Percentages  Enrolled  in  Each  Subject  of  the  Sum  Total  of  the 
Subject  Enrollments  For  All  Pupils  and  All  Semesters 

Math.      Eng.        Latin      Ger.        Fr.       Hist.        Sci.  Bus.    Span,  or 

Subj's.     Greek 
17.3        24.0        11.9        8.5  6.8       10.2         12.5  8.3  .5 

We  note  that  the  percentages  for  mathematics  and  English, 
which  represent  their  portions  of  the  grand  total  of  subject  en- 
rollments,  are   virtually  the   reverse   of   the   percentages   which 


20     ScJvool  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

designate  the  amount  of  total  failures  produced  by  the  same  two 
subjects.  That  means  that  the  percentage  of  the  total  failures 
produced  by  mathematics  is  really  greater  than  was  at  first  ap- 
parent, while  the  percentages  of  failures  for  English  is  not  so 
great  relatively  as  the  statement  of  the  total  failures  above  would 
alone  indicate.  In  a  similar  manner,  we  note  that  Latin  has 
18.7  per  cent  of  all  the  failures,  but  its  portion  of  the  total  en- 
rollment for  all  subjects  is  only  11.9  per  cent.  If  the  failures  in 
this  subject  were  in  proportion  to  the  enrollment,  its  percentage 
of  the  failures  would  be  reduced  by  6.8  per  cent.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  failures  for  English  were  in  the  same  proportion  to 
the  total  as  is  its  subject  enrollment,  it  would  claim  7.5  per  cent 
more  of  all  the  failures.  In  the  same  sense,  French,  history, 
science,  and  the  business  subjects  have  a  smaller  proportion  of 
all  the  failures  than  of  all  the  subject  enrollments. 

The  comparison  of  failures  by  subjects  may  be  continued  still 
further  by  computing  the  percentage  of  failures  in  each  subject 
as  based  on  the  number  enrolled  in  that  subject.  Such  per- 
centages are  here  presented  for  each  subject. 

Percentage  of  the  Number  Taking  the  Subject  Who  Fail 
IN  That  Subject 

Latin       Math.       Ger.       Fr.       Hist.       Sci.       Eng.        Bus.       Span,  or 

Subj's.        Greek 

18.7        16.0        13.5      11.6      10.4        9.8        8.2         8.0  4.1 

It  becomes  evident  at  once  that  the  largest  percentage  of  fail- 
ures, based  on  the  pupils  taking  the  subject,  is  in  Latin,  although 
we  have  already  found  that  mathematics  has  the  greatest  per- 
centage of  all  the  failures  recorded  (p.  19).  But  here  mathe- 
matics follows  Latin,  with  German  coming  next  in  order  as 
ranked  by  its  high  percentage  of  failure  for  those  enrolled  in 
the  subject.  History  has  the  median  percentage  for  the  failures 
as  listed  for  the  nine  subjects  above. 

The  failures  as  reported  by  subjects  for  other  schools  and 
other  pupils  will  provide  a  comparison  which  may  indicate  some- 
thing of  the  relative  standing  of  this  group  of  schools  in  refer- 
ence to  failures.  The  failures  are  presented  below  for  thirteen 
high  schools  in  New  Jersey,  involving  24,895  grades,  as  reported 
by  D.  C.  Bliss^  in  1917.     As  the  schools  were  reported  singly,  the 


Hoiv  Extensive  are  the  Failurcsf  21 

median  percentage  of  failure  for  each  subject  is  used  here  for 
our  purpose.  But  Mr.  BHss'  figures  are  computed  from  the  pro- 
motion sheets  for  June,  1915,  and  include  none  of  those  who  had 
dropped  out.  In  this  sense  they  are  not  comparable  to  the  per- 
centages of  failure  as  presented  in  this  study.  Yet  with  the  one 
exception  of  Latin  these  median  percentages  are  higher.  The 
percentages  as  presented  below  for  St.  Paul*  are  in  each  case 
based  on  the  total  number  taking  the  subject  for  a  single  se- 
mester, and  include  aboiit  4,000  pupils,  in  all  the  classes,  in  the 
four  high  schools  of  the  city.* 

The  facts  presented  for  St.  Louis^  are  for  one  school  only, 
with  2.089  pupils,  as  recorded  for  the  first  half  of  the  year 
1915-16.  All  foreign  languages  as  reported  for  this  school  are 
grouped  together.  History  is  the  only  subject  that  has  a  per- 
centage of  failure  lower  than  that  of  the  corresponding  subjects 
for  our  eight  schools.  The  figures  for  both  St.  Paul  and  St. 
Louis  are  based  on  the  grades  for  all  classes  in  school,  but  for 
only  a  single  semester.  One  cannot  avoid  feeling  that  a  state- 
ment of  facts  for  so  limited  a  period  may  or  may  not  be  depend- 
able and  representative  for  all  periods.  The  percentages  for 
Paterson^  are  reported  for  about  4,000  pupils,  in  all  classes,  for 
two  successive  semesters,  and  are  based  on  the  number  exam- 
ined. For  Denver,"  the  records  are  reported  for  4,120  pupils, 
and  cover  a  two-year  period.  The  percentages  for  Butte^  are 
based  on  the  records  for  3,110  pupils,  for  one  school  semester. 
The  figures  reported  by  Rounds  and  Kingsbury"  are  for  only 

Percentages  of  Failure  by  Subjects— Quoted  for  Other  Schools 

Bus. 

Math.    Latin    Ger.    Fren.  Eng.  Hist       Sci.    Subj's. 

13N.  J.  H.  S's.  20.0       18.0       16.0           ..  14.0  11,0           ..       11.5 

St.Paul 218       13.6       14.3       17.0  10.0  10.9        7.3       11.7 

St.  Louis 18.0      [ 16 ]  13.0  7.0       19.0 

Paterson 23.1       21.6      23.4           ..  12.2  13.9       18.3        8.5 

Denver 24.0      21.0      12.0           ..  11.7  11.0       17.0       11.0 

Butte 18.6      25.0      24.0      32.6  5.4  7.0       13.0        8.4 

R  andK 24.7          .             ..           ..  18.5          

OurSH.  S's...   16.0      18.7      13.5      11.6  8.2  10.4        9.8        8.0 

*  It  is  a  significant  fact,  and  one  worthy  of  note  here,  that  the  report  for  St.  Paul  is 
apparently  the  only  one  of  the  surveys  which  also  states  the  number  faking  each  subject, 
as  well  as  the  nercentages  of  failure.  Percentages  alone  do  not  tell  the  whole  story,  and 
they  do  not  promote  the  further  utilization  of  the  facts  to  discover  other  relationships. 


22     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

two  subjects,  but  for  forty-six  widely  separated  high  schools, 
whose  enrollment  for  these  two  subjects  was  57,680. 

In  some  schools  the  reports  were  not  available  for  all  subjects. 
It  is  not  at  all  probable,  so  far  as  information  could  be  obtained, 
that  the  failures  of  the  drop-out  pupils  for  any  of  the  schools 
were  included  in  the  percentages  as  reported  above,  or  that  the 
percentages  are  based  on  the  total  number  in  the  given  subjects, 
with  the  exception  of  one  school.  Moreover,  it  is  certain  for 
at  least  some  of  the  schools  that  neither  the  failures  of  the  drop- 
outs nor  the  pupils  who  were  in  the  class  for  less  than  a  whole 
semester  were  considered  in  the  percentages  above.  So  far, 
however,  as  these  comparisons  may  be  justified,  the  suggestion 
made  in  Chapter  I  that  the  schools  included  in  this  study  are 
doubtless  a  superior  group  with  respect  to  failures  appears  to  be 
strengthened  by  the  comparisons  made  above. 

It  becomes  more  apparent,  as  we  attempt  to  offer  a  statement 
of  failures  as  taken  from  the  various  reports,  that  they  are  not 
truly  comparable.  The  bases  of  such  percentages  are  not  at  all 
uniform.  The  basis  used  most  frequently  is  the  number  en- 
rolled at  the  end  of  the  period  rather  than  the  total  number 
enrolled  for  any  class,  for  which  the  school  has  had  to  provide, 
and  which  should  most  reasonably  form  the  basis  of  the  per- 
centage of  failure.  Furthermore,  the  failures  for  pupils  who 
drop  out  are  not  usually  counted.  Yet,  in  most  of  the  reports, 
the  situation  is  not  clearly  indicated  for  either  of  the  facts  re- 
ferred to.  Still  more  difficult  is  the  task  of  securing  a  general 
statement  of  failures  by  subjects,  since  the  percentages  are  most 
frequently  reported  separately  for  each  class,  in  each  subject, 
and  for  different  buildings,  but  with  the  number  of  pupils  stated 
for  neither  the  failures  nor  the  enrollment.  The  St.  Paul  report* 
is  an  exception  in  this  regard. 

To  present  the  full  situation  it  is  indeed  necessary  to  know 
the  failures  for  particular  teachers,  subjects,  and  buildings,  but 
it  is  also  frequently  necessary  to  be  able  to  make  a  comparison 
of  results  for  different  systems.  Consequently,  in  order  to  use 
the  varied  reports  for  the  attempted  comparison  above,  the  plan 
was  pursued  of  averaging  the  percentages  as  stated  for  the  dif- 
ferent classes,  semesters,  and  years  of  a  subject,  in  each  school 
separately,  and  then  selecting  the  median  school  thus  determined 


How  Extensive  are  the  Failures?  23 

as  the  one  best  representing  the  city  or  the  system.  This  method 
was  employed  to  modify  the  reports,  and  to  secure  the  percent- 
ages as  stated  above  for  Denver,  Patterson,  and  Butte.  Any 
plan  of  averaging  the  percentages  for  the  four  years  of  English, 
or  similarly  for  any  other  subject,  may  actually  tend  to  misstate 
the  facts,  when  the  percentages  or  the  numbers  represented  are 
not  very  nearly  equal.  But,  in  an  incidental  way,  the  difficulty 
serves  to  emphasize  the  inadequacy  and  the  incomparability  in 
the  reporting  of  failures  as  found  in  the  various  studies,  as  well 
as  to  warn  us  of  the  hopelessness  of  reaching  any  conclusions 
apart  from  a  knowledge  of  the  procedure  employed  in  securing 
the  data. 

The  basis  is  also  provided  for  some  interesting  comparisons 
by  isolating  from  the  general  distribution  of  failures  by  school 
subjects  (p.  19)  the  same  facts  for  the  failing  graduates.  That 
gives  the  following  distribution. 

The  Failures  by  School  Subjects  For  Graduates  Only 


Total       Math. 

5803  B.       660 
6334  G.       782 

Eng. 

403 
347 

Latin 

521 
673 

Ger. 

241 
257 

Fr. 

191 
240 

Hist. 

180 
410 

Sci. 

251 
394 

Bus.   Span,  or 
Subj's.  Greek 
91          7 
162        12 

Per  Cent 

of  Totals    24.8 

12.9 

20.5 

8.5 

7.4 

10.1 

11. 

4.3        .3 

Similar  Percentages  for  the  Non-Graduates 
As  above  23.6    18.3      17.7      10.1      5.3      8.4        10.        6.3         .1 

It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  the  percentages  of  failure  (based 
on  the  total  failures  for  the  graduates)  run  higher  in  mathe- 
matics, Latin,  history,  French,  and  science  for  the  graduates  than 
for  the  whole  composite  number  (page  19).  The  non-graduates 
have  a  correspondingly  lower  percentage  of  failure  in  these  sub- 
jects, as  is  indicated  above.  The  school  influences  in  respect  to  the 
failures  of  the  non-graduates  differ  from  those  of  the  graduates 
chiefly  in  the  fact  that  the  failures  of  the  former  tend  to  occur 
to  a  greater  extent  in  the  earlier  years  of  these  subjects,  since 
so  many  of  the  non-graduates  are  in  the  school  for  only  those 
earlier  years;  while  the  failures  of  the  graduates  range  more 
widely  and  have  a  tendency  to  predominate  in  the  upper  years 
of  the  subject,  as  will  be  further  emphasized  in  the  later  pages 
of  this  report  (see  also  Table  IV). 


24     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

5.    Distribution  of  Pupils  Dropping  Out — Semesters — Ages 

Table  V  presents  the  facts  concerning  the  time  and  the  age  at 
which  the  faiHng  pupils  drop  out  of  school.  Table  VI  furnishes 
the  corresponding  facts  for  the  non-failing  drop-outs. 


TABLE  V 


Distribution  of  the  Failing  Non-Graduates 

;,  Showing  the  ! 

Semester 

en 

AND  THE  Age  at  the  Time  of  Dropping  Out   « 

H 

u 

AGES 

an 

] 

13  14   15   16 

17 

18 

19 

20  21  22   g 

totals 

1 

B. 

1  40   49   50 

18 

0 

1 

1  . 

1 

160 

G. 

3  40   65   47 

23 

4 

0 

0  . 

.   3 

185 
345 

2 

B. 

.   9   56   88 

56 

22 

6 

2  . 

.   3 

242 

G. 

.   6   72  119 

61 

24 

3 

0  . 

.   6 

291 
533 

3 

B. 

.   4   30   40 

23 

10 

7 

.   0 

114 

G. 

.   3   35   51 

32 

13 

7 

.   1 

142 
256 

4 

B. 

1   16   66 

86 

34 

16 

2  . 

.   3 

224 

G. 

1   19   60 

70 

59 

18 

3  . 

.   0 

230 

454 

5 

B. 

.   ..    2   12 

36 

21 

8 

4  . 

.   3 

86 

G. 

.   ..    4   17 

48 

28 

9 

3  . 

.   1 

110 

196 

6 

B. 

...16 

48 

52 

38 

10  . 

1 

156 

G. 

.   ..    1   11 

52 

49 

26 

5  . 

.   2 

146 
302 

7 

B. 

2 

12 

35 

21 

7 

0 

1 

78 

G. 

'.'.'.        '.'.         2 

15 

21 

15 

4 

1 

.   0 

59 
137 

8 

B. 

0 

10 

23 

19 

19 

2 

0   2 

75 

G. 

2 

10 

31 

29 

10 

4 

2   3 

91 
166 

9 

B. 

1 

4 

4 

2  . 

1   1 

13 

G. 

1 

6 

12 

4  . 

0   0 

23 
36 

10 

B. 

1 

3 

3 

1  .. 

8 

G. 

4 

3 

3 

1  .. 

11 
19 

11 

B. 

0 

0 

0  .. 

0 

G. 

2 

1 

1  .. 

4 

4 
1156 

Tot. 

B. 

1  54  154  264 

290 

201 

120 

50 

6 

2  14 

G. 

3  50  196  309 

312 

235 

123 

34 

9 

4  16 

1292 

2448 

Table  V  reads :  In  the  first  semester  1  boy  and  3  girls  drop 
out  at  age  13;  40  boys  and  40  girls  drop  out  at  the  age  of  14; 
49  boys  and  65  girls,  at  the  age  of  15.  In  this  table,  as  else- 
where, age  15  means  from  14^  to  15^/2,  and  so  on.    Any  drop- 


Hozij  Extensive  are  the  Failures? 


25 


out.  as  for  the  second  semester,  means  either  during  or  at  the 
end  of  that  semester. 

TABLE  VI 

Distribution  of  the  Non-Failing  Non-Graduates,  Showing  the  Sem- 
^        ester  and  the  Age  at  the  Time  of  Dropping  Out 


Ed 

ages 

r. 

13    14    15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

totals 

1 

B. 

17   118   141 

106 

39 

3 

4 

1 

1 

430 

G. 

11   159   235 

160 

51 

19 

4 

4 

0 

643 

1073 

2 

B. 

0 

7    49 

50 

18 

7 

3 

0 

134 

G. 

1 

1    59 

42 

31 

10 

7 

2 

163 

297 

3 

B.' 

7 

16 

11 

5 

1 

0 

40 

G. 

14 

22 

33 

15 

3 

2 

89 
129 

4 

B. 

5 

13 

11 

10 

1 

0 

1 

41 

G. 

7 

20 

31 

16 

2 

1 

1 

78 
119 

5 

B. 

1 

2 

9 

1 

2 

0 

15 

G. 

0 

3 

10 

9 

4 

1 

27  42 

6 

B. 

1 

4 

14 

3 

2 

0 

24 

G. 

0 

5 

17 

13 

7 

3 

45 
69 

7 

B. 

0 

2 

2 

2 

1 

7 

G. 

1 

2 

7 

1 

1 

12 
19 

8 

B. 
G. 

1 
3 

1 
1 

1 

1 

3 
5 
8 

9 

B. 
G. 

0 

1 

0 
1 

1 

To 

t.  B.   1 

7   12 

5   204 

191 

104 

32 

16 

3 

2 

694 

G.   1 

2   17 

0   315 

253 

175 

92 

29 

16 

1 

1063 

1757 


Table  VI  reads  similarly  to  Table  V.  The  distribution  of  the 
age  totals  for  the  pupils  dropping  out  gives  us  medians  which, 
for  both  boys  and  girls,  fall  within  the  17-year  group  for  the 
failing  pupils,  but  within  the  16-year  group  for  the  non-failing 
pupils.  For  Table  Y  the  mode  of  the  distribution  is  at  17,  but 
for  Table  VI  it  is  at  15.  The  percentages  of  dropping  out  for 
each  age  group  are  given  below.  First,  all  the  pupils  of  Tables 
V  and  VI  are  grouped  together  for  this  purpose,  then  the  boys 
and  the  girls  for  Tables  V^  and  VI  are  considered  separately  to 
facilitate  the  comparison  of  facts. 


14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

21 

9.5 

20.7 

24.2 

21.0 

13.3 

6.8 

2.4 

1.2 

26     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

Percentages  in  Each  Age  Group  of  the  Total  Number  Dropping  Out 

Ages 13 

Percent 0.8 

It  is  readily  seen  from  the  above  percentages  that,  as  would 
be  expected,  the  drop-outs  are  most  frequent  for  the  very  ages 
which  are  most  common  in  the  high  school.  There  is  no  special 
accumulation  of  drop-outs  for  either  the  earlier  or  the  later  ages. 
But,  if  in  any  semester  we  consider  the  drop-outs  for  each  age 
as  a  percentage  of  the  total  pupils  represented  for  that  age,  the 
facts  are  more  fully  revealed,  as  is  indicated  below  for  certain 
semesters. 

Percentages  of  Drop-outs  for  Each  Age,  on  the  Totals  for  Such  Age 
IN  THE  First,  Second  and  Fourth  Semesters 

AGES 

13  14  15  16  17  18  19        20        21 

Semester  1 6.8  18.2  23.1  32.6  38.3  35.0  40.0  40.0 

Semester2 4.0  8.1  14.8  18.3  22.2  30.0  40.0  33.0 

.Semester4 0  9.0  11.8  12.5  16.5  24.6  35.2  50.0 

If  these  semesters  may  be  taken  as  indicative  of  all,  an  almost 
steady  increase  will  be  expected  in  the  percentages  of  drop-outs 
as  the  ages  of  the  pupils  rise.  It  follows,  then,  that  the  older 
ages  have  the  higher  percentages  of  drop-outs  when  this  basis 
of  the  computation  is  employed.  We  may,  however,  make  some 
helpful  comparisons  of  the  ages  of  drop-outs  for  boys  and  for 
girls  by  merely  using  the  percentages  of  total  drop-outs  for  the 
purpose. 

Percentages  of  Failing  Drop-Outs  in  Each  Age  Group,  for  Boys  and 

Girls  Separately 

ages 

13         14         15        16  17  18  19  20  21 

Boys 0      4.6     12.5    22.8  25.1  17.4  10.3  4.3  1.9 

Girls 2      3.8     15.1     23.9  24.1  19.0  9.5  2.6  2.2 

Here  it  appears  that,  of  all  the  boys  and  girls  who  fail  before 
dropping  out,  the  school  loses  at  the  age  of  14,  for  example,  4.6 
per  cent  for  the  boys  and  3.8  per  cent  for  the  girls.  As  a  matter 
of  mere  convenience,  the  percentages  for  age  21  are  made  to 
include  also  the  undistributed  pupils  in  Table  V. 


Hoiv  Extensive  are  the  Failures?  27 

Percentages  of  the  Non-Failing  Drop-Outs  in  Each  Age  Group,  for 
Boys  and  Girls  Separately 


Boys. 
Girls. 


ages 

13 

14        15        16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

2.4 

18.0    29.4    27.1 

15.0 

4.4 

2.3 

0.7 

1.1 

16.0    29.6    23  8 

16.4 

8.6 

2.7 

1.6 

These  percentages  are  computed  from  the  age  totals  in  Table 
VI,  just  as  the  ones  preceding  are  computed  from  Table  V.  It 
seems  worthy  of  note  here  that  close  to  50  per  cent  of  the  non- 
failing  drop-outs  occur  under  16  years  of  age,  for  both  the  boys 
and  the  girls ;  but  that  the  number  of  the  failing  pupils  who  drop 
out  does  not  reach  20  per  cent  for  the  boys  or  the  girls  in  these 
same  years.  It  is  likewise  remarkable  in  these  distributions  that 
the  percentages  for  boys  and  for  girls  show  such  slight  differ- 
ences in  either  of  the  two  groupings. 

Summary  of  Chapter  II 

If  to  the  recorded  failures  the  virtual  but  unrecorded  ones 
are  added,  the  percentage  of  failing  pupils  is  66  per  cent. 
This  percentage  is  higher  for  the  boys  than  for  the  girls  by  a 
difference  of  6  per  cent. 

Of  the  graduating  pupils,  58.1  per  cent  fail  one  or  more  times. 

Of  the  non-failing  non-graduates  78  per  cent  are  lost  from 
school  by  the  end  of  their  first  year.  But  the  failing  non-grad- 
uates have  not  lost  such  a  percentage  before  the  end  of  the  third 
year. 

The  percentage  of  pupils  failing  increases  for  the  first  four 
semesters,  and  lowers  but  little  for  two  more  semesters.  One 
third  to  one  half  of  the  pupils  fail  in  each  semester  to  seventh. 

In  the  distribution  of  failures  by  ages  and  semesters,  86  per 
cent  are  found  from  ages  15  to  18  inclusive.  Thirty-four  per 
cent  of  the  failures  occur  after  the  end  of  the  second  year,  when 
52.2  per  cent  of  the  pupils  have  been  lost  and  others  are  leaving 
continuously. 

Mathematics,  Latin,  and  English  head  the  list  in  the  percent- 
ages of  total  failures,  and  together  provide  nearly  60  per  cent  of 
the  failures ;  but  English  has  a  large  subject-enrollment  to  bal- 
ance its  count  in  failures. 


28    School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

Mathematics,  Latin,  and  German  fail  the  highest  percentages 
on  the  number  of  pupils  taking  the  subjects. 

In  several  subjects  the  percentages  of  failure  based  on  the 
total  failures  are  higher  for  the  graduates  than  for  the  non- 
graduates. 

For  the  pupils  dropping  out  without  failure  the  median  age  is 
at  16,  with  the  mode  at  15.  For  the  failing  drop-outs  both  the 
median  and  the  mode  are  at  the  age  of  17.  Nearly  50  per  cent 
of  the  non-failing  drop-outs  occur  under  age  16,  but  not  20  per 
cent  of  the  failing  non-graduates  are  gone  by  that  age.  The 
percentage  of  drop-outs  is  higher  for  older  pupils. 

References 

1.  Kelley,  T.  L.     "A  Study  of  High  School  and  University  Grades,  with 

Reference  to  Their  Intercorrelation  and  the  Causes  of  Elimination," 
Journal  of  Educational  Psychology,  6:365. 

2.  Johnson,   G.    R.     "Qualitative   Elimination  in   High   School,"  School 

Review,  18:680. 

3.  Bliss,  D.  C.    "  High  School  Failures,"  Educational  Administration  and 

Supervision,  Vol.  3. 

4.  Strayer,  G.  D.,  Coffman,  L.  D.,  Prosser,  C.  A.     Report  of  a  Survey  of 

the  School  System  of  St.  Paul,  Minnesota. 

5.  Meredith,  A.  B.    Survey  of  the  St.  Louis  Public  Schools,  1917,  Vol.  HI, 

p.  51. 

6.  Annual  Report  of  the  Board  of  Education,  Paterson,  New  Jersey,  1915. 

7.  Bobbitt,  J.  F.     Report  of  the  School  Survey  of  Denver,  1916. 

8.  Strayer,  G.  D.     A  Survey  of  the  Public  Schools  of  Butte,  1914. 

9.  Rounds,  C.  R.,  Kingsbury,  H.  B.     "  Do  Too  Many  Students  Fail?  " 

School  Review,  21:585. 


CHAPTER  III 

WHAT  BASIS  IS  DISCOVERABLE  FOR  PROGNOSTI- 
CATING THE  OCCURRENCE  OF  OR  THE  NUM- 
BER OF  FAILURES  ? 

I.    Attendance,  Mental  or  Physical  Defects,  and 
Size  of  Classes  Are  Possible  Factors 

Any  definite  factors  available  for  the  school  that  have  a  prog- 
nostic value  in  reference  to  school  failures  will  help  to  perform 
a  function  quite  comparable  to  the  science  of  preventive  medicine 
in  its  field,  and  in  contrast  with  the  older  art  of  doctoring  the 
malady  after  it  has  been  permitted  to  develop.  Such  prognosti- 
cation of  failure,  however,  need  not  imply  a  complete  knowledge 
of  the  causes  of  the  failures.  It  may  simply  signify  that  in  cer- 
tain situations  the  causes  are  less  active  or  are  partly  overcome 
by  other  factors. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  simplest  factors  with  a  prognostic  value 
on  failure  may  be  found  in  the  facts  of  attendance.  Persistent 
or  repeated  absence  from  school  may  reach  a  point  where  it 
tends  to  afTect  the  number  of  failures.  It  happened,  unfortu- 
nately, that  the  reports  for  attendance  were  incomplete  or  lack- 
ing in  a  considerable  portion  of  the  records  employed  in  this 
study.  Consequently  the  influence  of  attendance  is  given  no 
especial  consideration  in  these  pages,  except  as  explained  in 
Chapter  I,  that  the  pupil  must  have  been  present  enough  of  any 
semester  to  secure  his  subject  grades,  else  no  failure  is  counted 
and  no  time  is  charged  to  his  period  in  school.  In  this  connec- 
tion, Dr.  C.  H.  Keyes^  found  in  a  study  of  elementary  school 
pupils  that  of  1,649  pupils  losing  four  weeks  or  more  in  a  single 
year  459  belonged  to  the  accelerate  pupils,  647  to  those  arrested, 
and  543  to  pupils  normal  in  their  school  work.  He  accredits 
such  large  loss  of  time  as  almost  invariably  the  result  of  illness 
and  of  contagious  disease.     He  also  says,  "  Prolonged  absence 

29 


30    School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

from  school  is  appreciable  in  producing  arrest  especially  when  it 
amounts  to  more  than  25  days  in  one  school  year."  But  the  dis- 
eases of  childhood,  with  the  resultant  absence,  are  less  prevalent 
in  the  high  school  years  than  earlier.  Furthermore,  the  losses 
due  to  change  of  residence  will  not  be  met  with  here,  for,  as 
explained  in  Chapter  I,  no  transferred  pupils  are  included  sub- 
sequent to  the  time  of  the  transference  either  to  or  from  the 
school. 

The  influence  of  physical  or  mental  defects  also  deserves 
recognition  here  as  a  possible  factor  relative  to  school  failures, 
although  this  study  has  no  data  to  offer  of  any  statistical  value 
in  that  regard.  A  few  pupils  in  high  school  may  actually  reach 
the  limits  prescribed  by  their  '  intelligence  quotient '-  or  general 
mental  ability,  or  perhaps,  as  Bronner^  so  interestingly  points 
out,  be  handicapped  by  some  special  mental  disability.  If  such 
be  true,  they  will  doubtless  be  found  in  the  number  of  school 
drop-outs  later  referred  to  as  failing  in  50  per  cent  or  more  of 
their  work ;  but  We  have  no  measurement  of  intelligence  re- 
corded for  them  to  serve  our  purposes  of  prognostication.  In 
the  matter  of  physical  defects  alone,  the  report  of  Dr.  L.  P. 
Ayres*  on  a  study  of  3,304  pupils,  ten  to  fourteen  years  old,  in 
New  York  City,  states  that  "In  every  case  except  in  that  of 
vision  the  children  rated  as  *  dull '  are  found  to  be  suffering  from 
physical  defects  to  a  greater  degree  than  '  normal '  or  '  bright ' 
children."  The  defects  of  vision,  which  is  the  exception  noted, 
may  be  even  partly  the  result  of  the  studious  habits  of  the  pupils. 
Bronner^  remarks  on  the  "  relationships  between  mental  and 
physical  conditions,"  and  also  on  how  "  the  findings  on  tests  were 
altogether  different  after  the  child  had  been  built  up  physically." 
But  Gulick  and  Ayres''  conclude  that  it  is  evident  from  the  facts 
at  hand  that  if  vision  were  omitted  the  percentage  of  defects 
would  dwindle  and  become  comparatively  small  among  the  upper 
grades.  This  would  probably  be  still  more  true  for  the  high 
school ;  but  this  whole  field  has  not  yet  been  completely  and  thor- 
oughly investigated. 

It  would  be  very  desirable  to  have  ascertained  the  size  of  the 
classes  in  which  the  failures  were  most  frequent,  as  well  as  the 
relative  success  of  the  pupils  repeating  subjects  in  larger  or  in 
smaller  classes.     But,  as  such  facts  were  unobtainable,  it  is  per- 


Prognosticating  Occurrence  of  or  Number  of  Failures     31 

mitted  here  simply  to  recognize  the  possible  influence  of  this 
factor.  It  seems  deserving  in  itself  of  careful  and  special  study. 
From  the  standpoint  of  the  pupil,  the  kind  of  subject,  the  kind  of 
teacher,  and  the  sort  of  discipline  employed  will  tend  to  influ- 
ence the  size  of  class  to  be  called  normal,  and  to  make  it  a  sort 
of  variable.  Thirty  pupils  is  regarded  by  the  North  Central 
Association  as  the  maximum  size  of  class  in  high  school.'"'  Surely 
the  size  of  class  will  react  on  the  pupil  by  affecting  the  teacher's 
spirit  and  energy.  Reference  is  made  by  Hall-Quest^  to  an 
experiment,  whose  author  is  not  named,  in  which  829  pupils 
stated  that  their  "  most  helpful  teachers  were  pleasant,  cheerful, 
optimistic,  enthusiastic,  and  young."  If  such  be  true  then  the 
very  large  size  of  classes  will  tend  to  reduce  the  teacher's  help- 
fulness. 

2.    The  EMrLOY:MENT  of  the  School  Entering  Age  for 

Prognosis 

A  promising  but  less  emphasized  basis  of  prognosticating  the 
school  success  or  faikire  of  the  pupils  is  found  in  the  employment 
of  the  school  entering  ages  for  this  purpose.  The  distribution 
of  all  the  pupils  (except  30  undistributed  ones,  for  whom  the 
records  were  incomplete),  according  to  entering  age,  is  here  pre- 
sented, independently  for  the  boys  and  for  the  girls. 

Distribution  of  Pupils  by  Their  Entrance  Ages  to  High  School 


AGES 

Total   12 

13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

Undis- 
tributed 

2646  B.  16 

211 

820 

900 

497 

148 

23 

10 

7 

14 

3495  G.  8 

259 

1124 

1217 

614 

194 

51 

10 

8 

16 

The  entering  ages  of  these  6,141  pupils  are  distributed  from 
12  to  20,  with  30  of  them  for  whom  the  age  records  were  not 
given.  The  median  age  for  all  the  entrants  is  15.3.  But  in 
order  to  compare  this  with  the  median  entering  age  (14.9)  of 
the  1,033  pupils  reported  by  King®  for  the  Iowa  City  high  school, 
or  with  the  median  entering  age  (14.5)  of  1000  high  school  pupils 
in  New  York  City,  as  reported  by  Van  Denburg,*-*  it  is  neces- 
sary to  reduce  these  medians  to  the  same  basis  of  age  classifica- 
tion.    Since  age  15  for  this  study  starts  at  14^,  then  15.3  would 


32     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

be  only  14.8  (15.3  —  .5)  as  by  their  classification.    The  percent- 
ages of  the  total  number  of  pupils  for  each  age  are  given  below. 

Percentages  of  Pupils  for  Each  Entering  Age 

AGES 
12  13  14  15  16  17  18         19        20 

Undistributed 

Total 0.4        7.6      31.6      34.4      18.1        5.5        1.2  1.0 

Boys 0.6        8.0      31.0      37.8      18.8        5.6        0.8  1.1 

Girls 0.2        7.4      32.4      34.8      17.5        5.5        1.4  1.0 

We  see  that  84  per  cent  of  the  pupils  enter  at  age  14,  15,  and 
16,  or,  what  is  perhaps  more  important,  that  nearly  40  per  cent 
enter  under  15  years  of  age.  The  similarity  of  percentages  for  boys 
and  for  girls  is  pronounced.  The  slight  advantage  of  the  boys 
for  ages  12  and  13  may  be  due  to  home  influence  in  restricting 
the  early  entrance  of  the  girls,  thus  causing  a  corresponding 
superiority  for  the  girls  at  age  14.  The  mode  of  this  percentage 
distribution  is  at  15  for  both  boys  and  girls. 

What  portion  of  each  entering-age-group  has  no  failures? 
This  question  and  the  answer  presented  below  direct  our  atten- 
tion to  the  superiority  of  the  pupils  of  the  earlier  entering  ages. 
That  these  groups  of  earlier  ages  of  entrance  are  comprised  of 
pupils  selected  for  their  capabilities  is  shown  by  the  successive 
decrease  in  the  percentages  of  the  non-failing  as  the  ages  of 
their  entrance  increases,  up  to  age  18. 

Distribution  of  the  Pupils  Who  Do  Not  Fail,  for  Each 
Entering-Age-Group 

ages 

12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20 
Totals 

1001  B  11  102  320  309  186  56  9  4  4 

1574  G 3  133  522  545  256  73  29  7  6 


%  of  Entrants.  58.0   50.0   43.4   40,0   39.8   37.7      55.0 

Here  is  definite  evidence  that  the  pupils  of  the  earlier  entering 
ages  are  less  likely  to  fail  in  any  of  their  school  subjects  than  are 
the  older  ones.  Those  entering  at  ages  12  or  13  escape  school 
failures  altogether  for  50  per  cent  or  more  of  their  numbers. 
Those  entering:  at  aee  14  are  somewhat  less  successful  but  still 


Prognosticating  Occurrence  of  or  Number  of  Failures     33 

seem  superior  to  those  of  later  entrance  ages.  It  is  encouraging, 
then,  that  these  three  ages  of  entrance  inckide  nearly  40  per  cent 
of  the  6.141  pupils.  There  is,  of  course,  nothing  in  this  situation 
to  justify  any  deduction  of  the  sort  that  pupils  entering  at  the 
age  of  17  would  have  been  more  successful  had  they  been  sent 
to  high  school  earlier,  except  that  had  they  been  able  to  enter 
high  school  earlier  they  would  have  represented  a  different  selec- 
tion of  ability  by  that  fact  alone.  There  is  also  a  sort  of  selec- 
tion operative  for  the  pupils  entering  at  ages  18,  19,  or  20,  which 
tends  to  account  at  least  partly  for  the  rise  in  the  percentage  of 
the  non-failing  for  these  years.  It  is  safe  to  believe  that  for  the 
most  part  only  the  more  able,  ambitious,  and  purposeful  indi- 
viduals are  likely  to  display  the  energy  required  or  to  discern 
the  need  of  their  entering  high  school  when  they  have  reached 
the  age  of  18  or  later.  The  appeal  of  school  athletics  will  in 
this  case  seem  very  inadequate  to  explain  their  entrance  so  late, 
since  the  girls  predominate  so  strongly  for  these  years.  Then, it 
may  be  contended  further  that  the  added  maturity  and  experi- 
ence of  those  later  entrants  may  partly  compensate  for  a  lack  of 
native  ability,  if  such  be  the  case,  and  thereby  result  in  a  rela- 
tively high  percentage  of  non-failing  pupils  for  this  group. 

It  is  readily  conceded  that  the  avoidance  of  failure  in  school 
work  serves  as  only  one  criterion  for  gauging  the  pupils'  accom- 
plishment. It  is  accordingly  important  to  inquire  how  the  dif- 
ferent age-groups  of  school  entrants  compare  with  reference  to 
the  persistence  and  ability  which  is  represented  by  school  grad- 
uation. A  truly  striking  array  of  percentages  follows  in  refer- 
ence to  the  question  of  how  many  of  the  entering  pupils  in  each 
age-group  do  graduate. 

Distribution  of  the  Pupils  Gr.aduating  for  Each  E.\terlvg-Age  Group 

AGES 

Totals  12 

796  B 14 

1140G 5 

%  of  Entrants.  79.1 

These  percentages  bear  convincing  testimony  in  support  of  the 
previous  evidence  that  the  pupils  of  the  earlier  entering  years 


13 

14 

15 

16 

17 

18 

19 

20 

115 

290 

253 

99 

20 

2 

1 

2 

151 

465 

363 

124 

26 

5 

1 

0 

56.6 

38.8 

29.9 

20.0 

13.4 

9.4 

10.0 

13.3 

34     ScJiool  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

are  highly  selected  in  ability.  Of  all  the  high  school  entrants 
they  are  the  *  most  fit,'  the  least  likely  to  fail,  and  the  most  cer- 
tain to  graduate.  The  percentage  of  pupils  graduating  who 
entered  at  the  age  of  12  is  approximately  four  times  that  of 
pupils  who  entered  at  the  age  of  16.  Thirteen  is  more  than 
four  times  as  fruitful  of  graduates  as  age  17;  fourteen  bears  a 
similar  relationship  to  age  18;  and  the  percentage  for  fifteen  is 
three  times  that  for  age  19,  as  is  apparent  from  the  above  figures. 
The  fact  that  the  decline  of  these  percentages  ceases  at  age  19 
is  probably  due  to  the  greater  maturity  of  such  later  entrants. 

When  we  make  inquiry  as  to  what  portion,  of  the  graduates  in 
each  of  the  above  groups  '  goes  through '  in  four  years  or  less, 
we  get  the  series  of  percentages  indicated  below. 

Percentage  of  the  Graduates  Who  Finish  in  Four  Years  or  Less, 
For  Each  of  the  Entering-Age  Groups 

Ages 12  13  14  15  16  17  18 

%ofEaehGroup 84.2      85.7      75.8      79.5      84.3      80.4        100 

It  appears  that  the  ones  in  the  older  age-groups  who  do  grad- 
uate are  not  so  handicapped  in  reference  to  the  time  requirement 
for  graduation  as  we  might  have  expected  them  to  be  from  the 
facts  of  the  preceding  pages.  Perhaps  that  fact  is  partly 
accounted  for  by  the  not  unusual  tendency  to  restrain  the 
more  rapid  progress  of  the  younger  pupils  or  to  promote  the 
older  ones  partly  by  age,  so  that  by  our  school  procedure  the 
younger  and  the  brighter  pupils  may  at  times  actually  be  more 
retarded,  according  to  mental  age,  than  are  the  older  and  slower 
ones. 

Since  the  same  teachers,  the  same  schools,  and  the  same  ad- 
ministrative policy  were  involved  for  the  different  entrance-age 
groups,  the  prognostic  value  of  the  factor  of  age  at  entrance  will 
seem  to  be  unimpaired,  whether  it  operates  independently  as  a 
gauge  of  rank  in  mental  ability,  or  conjointly  with  and  indicative 
of  the  varying  influence  on  these  pupils  of  other  concomitant 
factors,  such  as  the  difference  of  economic  demands,  the  differ- 
ence of  social  interests,  the  difference  in  permanence  of  con- 
flicting habits  of  the  individual,  or  the  difference  in  effectiveness 
of  the  school's  appeal  as  adapted  for  the  several  ages.  One  may 
contend,  and  with  some  success,  that  the  high  school  regime  is 


Prognosticating  Occurrence  of  or  Number  of  Failures     35 

better  adjusted  to  the  younger  pupils,  with  the  consequent  result 
that  they  are  more  successful  in  its  requirements.  The  distrac- 
tions of  more  numerous  social  interests  may  actually  accompany 
the  later  years  of  school  age.  In  reference  to  the  social  distrac- 
tions of  girls,  Margaret  Slattery  says,"  "  This  mania  for  *  going ' 
seizes  many  of  our  girls  just  when  they  need  rest  and  natural 
pleasures,  the  great  out-of-doors,  and  early  hours  of  retiring." 
But  surely  such  distractions  are  not  peculiar  to  the  girls  alone. 
The  economic  needs  that  arise  at  the  age  of  sixteen  and  later  are 
often  considered  to  constitute  a  pressing  factor  regarding  the 
continuance  in  school.  But  VanDenburg'-'  was  convinced  by  the 
investigation,  in  New  York  City,  of  420  rentals  for  the  families 
of  pupils  that  "  on  the  whole  the  economic  status  of  these  pupils 
seems  to  be  only  a  slight  factor  in  their  continuance  in  school." 
A  similar  conclusion  was  reached  by  Wooley,"  in  Cincinnati,  after 
investigating  600  families,  in  which  it  was  estimated  that  73  per 
cent  of  the  families  did  not  need  the  earnings  of  the  children 
who  left  school  to  go  to  work.  The  corresponding  report  by  a 
commission^-  in  Massachusetts  shows  76  per  cent.  The  same 
facts  for  New  York  City"  indicate  that  80  per  cent  of  such  fami- 
lies are  independent  of  the  child's  wages.  But  Holley  concludes,^"* 
from  a  study  of  certain  towns  in  Illinois,  that  "  there  is  a  high 
correlation  between  the  economic,  educational,  and  social  advan- 
tages of  a  home  and  the  number  of  years  of  school  which  its 
children  receive."  It  will  hardly  be  denied  that  even  aside  from 
the  relation  of  the  family  means  to  the  school  persistence,  the 
economic  needs  may  have  a  direct  influence  on  the  failing  of  the 
children  in  their  school  work,  either  because  home  conditions 
may  be  decidedly  unfavorable  for  required  home  study,  or  be- 
cause of  the  larger  portion  of  time  that  must  be  given  to  outside 
employment,  with  its  consequent  reduction  of  the  normal  vitality 
of  the  individual  or  of  his  readiness  to  study.  But,  in  spite  of 
the  possible  interrelationship  of  these  factors,  it  still  appears  that 
the  school  entrance  age  of  pupils  will  serve  as  a  valuable  sort  of 
educational  compass  to  foretell  in  part  the  probable  direction  of 
their  later  accomplishment. 


36     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

3.   The  Amount  of  Failure  at  Each  Age  and  Its  Relation 
TO  THE  Possibility  of  Failing  for  That  Age 

We  have  considered  at  some  length  the  prognostic  value  of 
the  age  at  entrance.  Here  we  shall  briefly  consider  the  prog- 
nostic value  of  age  in  reference  to  the  time  when  failures  occur 
and  the  amount  of  failure  for  such  age.  If  we  were  to  total 
all  the  failures  for  a  given  age,  as  shown  in  Table  I,  what  part 
will  that  form  of  the  total  subjects  taken  by  these  pupils  at  the 
time  the  failures  occur?  In  other  words,  what  are  the  per- 
centages formed  by  the  total  failures  on  the  possibility  of  failing, 
for  the  same  pupils  and  the  same  semesters,  considered  by  age 
groups?  The  summary  line  of  Table  I  gives  the  total  failures 
according  to  the  ages  at  which  they  occurred.  The  number  of 
pupils  sharing  in  each  group  of  these  failures  is  also  known  by 
a  separate  tabulation.  Then  the  full  number  of  subjects  per 
pupil  is  taken  as  4^,  since  approximately  50  per  cent  of  the 
pupils  take  five  or  more  subjects  each  semester  and  the  other 
50  per  cent  take  four  or  less  (see  p.  61).  With  the  number  of 
pupils  given,  and  with  a  schedule  of  4^  subjects  per  pupil,  we 
are  able  to  compute  the  percentages  which  the  failures  form  of 
the  total  subjects  for  these  failing  pupils  at  the  time.  These 
percentages  are  given  below. 

The  Percentages  Formed  by  Failures  at  Each  Age  on  the  Possibilities 
OF  Failing  at  That  Age  and  Time,  for  the  Same  Pupils 

Ages 13        14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21 

% 36.6    38.0      37.9      40.9      40.8      41.2      41.3      42.0      42.7 

These  percentages  are  computed  from  the  data  secured  in  Table  I,  as  noted  above. 

There  is  an  almost  unbroken  rise  in  these  percentages  from 
36.6  for  age  13  to  42.7  for  age  21.  Not  only  do  a  greater 
number  of  the  older  pupils  fail,  as  was  previously  indicated,  but 
they  also  have  a  greater  percentage  of  failure  for  the  subjects 
which  they  are  taking.  It  seems  appropriate  here  to  offer  a 
caution  that,  in  reading  the  above  percentages,  one  must  not 
conclude  that  all  of  age  14  fail  in  38  per  cent  of  their  work, 
but  rather  that  those  who  do  fail  at  age  14  fail  in  38  per  cent  of 
their  work  for  that  semester.  The  evidence  does  not  seem  to 
indicate  that  the  maturity  of  later  years  operates  to  secure  any 


Prognosticating  Occurrence  of  or  Number  of  Failures     H 

general  reduction  of  these  percentages.  The  prognostic  value 
of  such  facts  seems  to  consist  in  leading  us  to  expect  a  greater 
percentage  of  failures  (on  the  total  subjects)  from  the  older 
pupils  who  fail  than  from  the  younger  ones  who  fail.  If  it  were 
possible  to  translate  the  above  percentages  to  a  basis  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  failure  for  all  pupils,  instead  of  the  possibility  for 
failing  pupils  only,  the  disparity  for  the  different  ages  would 
become  more  pronounced,  as  the  earlier  ages  have  more  non- 
failing  pupils.  But  this  we  are  not  able  to  do,  as  our  data  are 
not  adequate  for  that  purpose. 

4.    The  Initial  Record  in  High   School  for  Prognosis  of 

Failure 

For  this  purpose  the  pupil  record  for  the  first  year,  in  refer- 
ence to  failures,  is  deemed  more  adequate  and  dependable  than 
the  record  for  the  first  semester  only.  Accordingly,  the  pupils 
have  been  classified  on  their  first  year's  record  into  those  who 
had  0,  1,2,  3,  and  up  to  7  or  more  failures.  Then  these  groups 
were  further  distributed  into  those  who  failed  0,  1,  2,  3,  and  up 
to  7  or  more  times  after  the  first  year.  From  such  a  double 
distribution  we  may  get  some  indication  of  what  assurance  the 
first  year's  record  offers  on  the  expectation  of  later  failures. 
Table  VII  presents  these  facts. 

Table  VII  is  read  in  this  manner:  Of  all  the  pupils  who  have 
0  failures  the  first  year  (805  boys,  and  1,129  girls)  397  boys  and 
672  girls  have  0  failures  later,  105  boys  and  130  girls  have  1 
failure  later,  77  boys  and  98  girls  have  2  failures  later,  while 
68  boys  and  63  girls  have  seven  or  more  failures  later.  The 
column  of  totals  to  the  right  gives  the  pupils  for  each  number 
of  failures  for  the  first  year.  The  line  of  totals  at  the  bottom 
gives  the  pupils  for  each  number  of  failures  subsequent  to  the 
first  year. 

The  table  includes  3,508  pupils,  since  those  who  did  not  re- 
main in  school  more  than  three  semesters  are  not  included  (1,120 
boys,  1,513  girls).  Obviously,  those  who  do  not  stay  more  than 
one  year  would  have  no  subsequent  school  record,  and  those 
remaining  only  a  brief  time  beyond  one  year  would  not  have  a 
record  of  comparable  length.  It  seems  quite  significant,  too,  for 
the  purposes  of  our  prognosis,  that  of  the  2,633  pupils  dropping 

4  4  q  ^>  :^ 


38     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

out  in  three  semesters  or  less  only  about  43  per  cent  have  ever 
failed  (boys — 46  per  cent,  girls — 41  per  cent).  In  contrast  to 
this,  nearly  70  per  cent  (69.6)  of  those  continuing  in  school 
more  than  three  semesters  fail  one  or  more  times.  Those  who 
drop  out  without  failure,  in  the  three  semesters  or  less,  con- 
stitute nearly  60  per  cent  of  the  total  non-failing  pupils  (2,568), 
but  the  failing  pupils  who  drop  out  in  that  same  period  consti- 
tute less  than  32  per  cent  of  the  total  who  fail  (3,573).  This 
situation  received  some  emphasis  in  Chapter  II  and  will  be  fur- 
ther treated  in  Chapter  IV,  under  the  comparison  of  the  failing 
and  non-failing  groups. 

TABLE  VII 
Subsequent  Record  of  Failures  for  Pupils  Failing  1,  2,  3,  etc.,  Times 

THE  First  Year 

o«  failures  subsequent  to  first  year 

i>i  0  123456  7+  totals 

<■"' 

0  B  ...  397    105    77    50    47    37    24    68    805 
G     672    130   98    60    53    27    26    63   1129 

1069   235   175   110   100    64    50   131    1934 

1  B  ...   46    43    34    33    35    21    15    46    273 
G 65    43    53    33    33    19    17    67    330 

111    86    87    66    68    40   32   113    603 

2  B    .22    24    23    23    30    21    13    57    213 
G     42    32    27    21    22    13    15    83    255 

64    56    50    44    52    34    28   140    468 

3  B  .     7     5    16    10    10    13    10    30    101 
G   .    8     9    7    10    17    6    7    41    105 

15    14    23    20    27    19    17    71    206 

4  B  ....  6     8    5    7    711    7    23    74 
G   .    8     7    5    6    10    8    4    27    75 

14    15    10    13    17    19    11    50    149 

5  B 3  1  0  2  1  5  3         11  26 

G 5  9  5  6  5  4  2        14  50 

8        10  5  8  6  9  5        25  76 

6  B 0  1  4  2  1  1  1         10  20 

G  2  1226206  21 

2  2  6  4  7  3  1        16  41 

7+B 3  2  1  0  1  0  2  5  14 

G 1  2  1  1  5  2  0  5  17 

4421622        10  31 

Tot.  B.  ...484    189   160   127   132   109    75   250   1526 

G 803    233   198   139   151    81    71   306   1982 

1287   422   358   266   283   190   146   556    3508 


Prognosticating  Occurrence  of  or  Number  of  Failures     39 

Referring  directly  now  to  Table  VII,  we  find  that  44.7  per 
cent  of  those  not  failing  the  first  year  do  fail  later.  Of  all  those 
who  fail  the  first  year,  13.8  per  cent  escape  any  later  failures. 
Of  all  the  pupils  included  in  this  table  15.8  per  cent  have  7  or 
more  failures,  while  of  those  failing  in  the  first  year  27  per  cent 
later  have  7  or  more  failures.  For  the  number  included  in  this 
table  30.4  per  cent  have  no  failures  assigned  to  them. 

Percentage  of  First  Year  Failing  Groups,  Who  Later  Have  No  Failures 

No.  of  F's.  in  First  Year 1  2  3  4  5  6      7  + 

Per  Cent  of  Groups  Having 
no  Failures  Later 18.4     13.7      7.2      9.4     10.5      5.0    12.9 

About  the  same  percentage  of  the  boys  and  of  the  girls  (near 
60  per  cent)  is  represented  in  Table  VII.  The  girls  have  an 
advantage  over  the  boys  of  about  8  per  cent  for  those  belonging 
to  the  group  with  no  failures,  and  of  about  1  per  cent  for  the 
group  with  seven  or  more  failures. 

No  unconditional  conclusion  seems  justified  by  this  table.  In 
the  first  year's  record  of  failures  there  are  good  grounds  for  the 
promise  of  later  performance.  We  may  safely  say  that  those 
who  do  not  fail  the  first  year  are  much  less  likely  to  fail  later, 
and  that  if  they  do  fail  later,  they  have  less  accumulation  of 
failures.  Yet  some  of  this  group  have  many  failures  after  the 
first  year,  and  others  who  have  several  failures  the  first  year  have 
none  subsequently.  Generally,  however,  the  later  accumulations 
are  in  almost  direct  ratio  to  the  earlier  record,  and  the  later  non- 
failures  are  in  inverse  ratio  to  the  debits  of  the  first  year. 

5.    The  Prognosis  of  Failures  by  the  Subject  Selection 

From  the  distribution  of  failures  by  school  subjects  as  pre- 
sented in  Chapter  II,  this  will  seem  to  be  the  easiest  and  almost 
the  surest  of  all  the  factors  thus  far  considered  to  employ  for  a 
prognosis  of  failure.  For  of  all  pupils  taking  Latin  we  may 
confidently  expect  an  average  of  a  little  less  than  one  pupil  in 
every  five  to  fail  each  semester.  For  the  entire  number  taking 
mathematics,  the  expectation  of  failure  is  an  average  of  about 
one  in  six  for  each  semester.  German  comes  next,  and  for  each 
semester  it  claims  for  failure  on  the  average  nearly  one  pupil  in 


40     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

every  seven  taking  it.  Similarly  French  claims  for  failure  one 
in  every  nine ;  history,  one  in  every  ten ;  English  and  business 
subjects,  less  than  one  in  every  twelve.  It  will  be  noted  that  the 
average  on  a  semester  basis  is  employed  in  this  part  of  the  com- 
putation. Consequently,  it  is  not  the  same  as  saying  that 
such  a  percentage  of  pupils  fail  at  some  time,  in  the  subject. 
The  pupil  who  fails  four  times  in  first  year  mathematics  is  in- 
tentionally regarded  here  as  representing  four  failures.  Like- 
wise, the  pupil  who  completes  four  years  of  Latin  without  failure 
represents  eight  successes  for  the  subject  in  calculating  these  per- 
centages. Every  recorded  failure  for  each  pupil  is  thus  ac- 
counted for. 

It  was  also  noted  in  Chapter  II  that  the  percentages  of  the 
total  failures  run  higher  in  mathematics,  Latin,  history,  and 
science,  for  the  graduates  than  for  the  non-graduates.  This 
fact  is  not  due  to  the  greater  number  of  failures  of  graduates  in 
the  earlier  semesters,  when  most  of  the  non-graduate  failures 
occur,  but  to  the  increase  of  failures  for  the  graduates  in  the 
later  years,  as  is  disclosed  in  Tables  II  and  IV.  Accordingly, 
we  may  say  that  those  two  subjects  which  are  most  productive 
of  school  failures  are  increasingly  fruitful  of  such  results  in  the 
upper  years.  This  does  not  seem  to  be  the  usual  or  accepted 
conviction.  Certain  of  the  school  principals  have  expressed  the 
assurance  that  it  would  be  found  otherwise.  Such  deception  is 
easily  explainable,  for  the  number  of  failures  show  a  marked  re- 
duction, and  the  rise  of  percentages  is  consequently  easily  over- 
looked. It  is  quite  possible,  too,  that  in  some  individual  schools 
there  is  not  such  a  rise  of  the  percentages  of  failure  for  the 
graduates  in  any  of  the  school  subjects.  In  a  single  one  of  the 
eight  schools  reported  here  neither  Latin  nor  mathematics  showed 
a  higher  percentage  of  failure  for  the  graduate  pupils  over  the 
non-graduates.  In  the  other  seven  schools  the  graduates  had 
the  higher  percentage  in  one  or  both  of  these  subjects. 

6.   The  Time  Period  and  the  Number  of  Failures 

The  statement  that  the  number  of  failures  will  be  greater  for 
the  failing  pupils  who  remain  in  school  the  longer  time  may  seem 
rather  commonplace.     But  it  will  not  seem  trite  to  state  that  the 


Prognosticating  Occurrence  of  or  Number  of  Failures     41 

percentage  of  the  total  failures  on  the  total  subject  enrollments 
increases  by  school  semesters  up  to  the  seventh ;  that  the  per- 
centage of  possible  failures  for  all  graduating  pupils  increases 
likewise ;  or  that  the  failures  per  pupil  in  each  single  semester 
tend  to  increase  as  the  time  period  extends  to  the  later  semesters. 
Yet  radical  as  these  statements  may  sound,  they  are  actually 
substantiated  by  the  facts  to  be  presented. 

Percentage  of  the  Total  Failures  on  the  Total  Subject  Enrollment, 

BY  Semesters 

Semester.  123456789  10 
Percent.   11.5    13.9     14.5     15.1     14.5    15.3     12.1      9.9     10.9      6.2 

The  808  pupils  who  received  no  marks,  and  many  of  whom 
dropped  out  early  in  the  first  semester,  are  not  included  in  the 
subject  enrollment  for  the  above  percentages.  Otherwise  the 
enrollments  taken  are  for  the  beginning  of  each  semester  and 
inclusive  of  all  the  pupils.  These  percentages  rise  from  11.5  in 
the  first  semester  to  15.3  in  the  sixth  semester.  Then  the  per- 
centages drop  off,  doubtless  due  to  the  increasing  effect  by  this 
time  of  the  non-failing  graduates  on  the  total  enrollment.  The 
graduates  alone  are  next  considered  in  this  respect. 

Percentages  of  the  Total  Failures  for  the  Graduates  on  the  Total 
Subject  Enrollment  for  Graduates,  by  Semesters 


Semester.  , 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5          6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

Per  Cent.  . 

,  5.9 

6.6 

7.8 

9.1 

9.2     10.5 

9.1 

7.3 

8.8 

5.2 

These  percentages  are  based  on  the  total  possibility  of  failure, 
and  reach  their  highest  point  in  the  sixth  semester,  where  the 
percentage  of  failure  is  nearly  twice  that  for  the  first  semester. 
These  same  facts  may  be  effectively  presented  also  by  the  per- 
centages of  such  failures  for  the  graduates  on  the  total  subject 
enrollment  for  only  the  failing  graduates  in  each  semester. 

Percentages  of  the  Total  Failures  for  the  Graduates  on  the  Total 
Subject  Enrollment  for  Failing  Graduates,  by  Semesters 

Semester..       123456789        10 
Per  Cent.  .31.4    31.2    31.8    32.7    32.3    36.6    37.5    37.4    38.0    36.0 


42     School  Records  of  Pupils  Foiling  in  High  School  Subjects 

The  percentages  here  are  limited  to  the  total  possibilities  of 
failure  for  those  graduates  who  do  fail  in  each  semester.  They 
reach  the  highest  point  in  the  ninth  semester,  with  a  gradual 
increase  from  the  first.  The  high  point  is  reached  later  in  this 
series  than  in  the  one  immediately  preceding,  because  while  the 
percentage  of  pupils  failing  decreases  in  the  final  semesters 
(p.  14),  there  is  an  increase  in  the  number  of  failures  per  faiHng 
pupil  (Table  IV). 

This  increase  of  percentages  by  semesters  for  the  graduates 
on  the  total  possibility  of  failure,  as  just  noted,  is  due  to  an 
actual  increase  in  the  number  of  failures  for  the  later  semesters. 
By  the  distribution  of  failures  in  Table  II  more  than  56  per  cent 
of  the  failures  are  found  after  the  completion  of  the  second  year, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  about  10  per  cent  of  the  pupils  who 
graduate  do  so  in  three  or  three  and  a  half  years.  The  failures 
of  the  graduates  are  simply  the  more  numerous  after  the  first 
two  years  in  school.  That  this  situation  is  no  accident  due  to 
the  superior  weight  of  any  single  school  in  the  composite  group, 
is  readily  disclosed  by  turning  to  the  units  which  form  the  com- 
posite. For  these  schools  the  percentages  of  the  graduates'  fail- 
ures that  are  found  after  the  second  year  range  from  40  per  cent 
to  66  per  cent.  In  only  three  of  the  schools  are  such  percentages 
under  50  per  cent,  while  in  three  others  they  are  above  60  per  cent. 

Further  confirmation  of  how  the  increase  of  failures  accom- 
panies the  pupils  who  stay  longer  in  school  is  offered  in  the 
facts  of  Table  IV.  Here  are  indicated  the  number  of  pupils 
who  before  graduating  fail  1,  2,  3,  etc.,  times,  in  semesters  1, 
2,  3,  etc.,  up  to  10.  Of  all  the  occurrences  of  only  one  failure 
per  pupil  in  a  semester,  50  per  cent  are  distributed  after  the 
fourth  semester.  In  this  same  period  (after  the  fourth  semes- 
ter) are  found  53.2  per  cent  of  those  with  two  failures  in  a 
semester ;  67.6  per  cent  of  those  with  three  failures  in  a  se- 
mester ;  71.6  per  cent  of  those  having  four ;  78.6  per  cent  of  those 
having  five;  and  all  of  those  having  six  failures  in  a  single  se- 
mester. One  could  almost  say  that  the  longer  they  stay  the 
more  they  fail. 

The  statements  presented  herein  regarding  the  relative  increase 
of  failures  for  at  least  the  first  three  years  in  school  are  likely  to 
arouse  some  surprise  among  that  portion  of  the  people  in  the  pro- 


Prognosticating  Occurrence  of  or  Number  of  Failures    43 

fession,  with  whom  the  converse  of  this  situation  has  been  quite 
generally  accepted  as  true.  Such  an  impression  has  indeed  not 
seemed  unwarranted  according  to  some  reports,  but  the  responsi- 
bility for  it  must  be  due  in  part  to  the  manner  of  presenting  the 
data,  so  that  at  times  it  actually  serves  to  misstate  or  to  conceal 
certain  important  features  of  the  situation.  Since  the  dropping  out 
is  heaviest  in  the  early  semesters,  and  since  the  school  undertakes 
the  expense  of  providing  for  all  who  enter,  it  does  not  seem  to 
to  be  a  correct  presentation  of  the  facts  to  compute  the  per- 
centage of  failure  on  only  the  pupils  who  finish  the  whole  se- 
mester. Such  a  practice  tends  to  assign  an  undue  percentage 
of  failures  to  the  earlier  semesters,  one  that  is  considerably  too 
high  in  comparison  with  that  of  the  later  semesters  where  the 
dropping  out  becomes  relatively  light.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  re- 
port merely  what  part  of  our  final  product  is  imperfect,  instead 
of  reporting,  as  do  most  institutions  outside  of  the  educational 
field,  what  part  of  all  that  is  taken  in  becomes  waste  product. 
This  situation  is  sufficiently  grievous  to  demand  further  comment. 
In  his  study  of  the  New  Jersey  high  schools,  Bliss  states^^ 
that  one  of  the  striking  facts  found  is  the  "  steady  decrease  of 
failure  from  the  freshman  to  the  senior  year."  If  we  bear  in 
mind  that  Bliss  used  only  the  promotion  sheets  for  his  data,  and 
took  no  account  of  the  drop-outs  preceding  promotion,  and  if 
we  then  estimate  that  an  average  of  10  per  cent  may  drop  out 
before  the  end  of  the  first  semester  (the  percentage  is  13.2  for 
our  eight  schools),  then  the  percentages  of  failure  recorded 
for  the  first  year  will  be  reduced  by  one-eleventh  of  their 
own  respective  amounts  for  each  school  reported  by  Bliss, 
as  we  translate  the  percentages  to  the  total  enrollment 
basis.  As  a  consequence  of  such  a  procedure,  Bliss'  per- 
centages, as  reported  for  the  second  year,  will  be  as  high 
as  or  higher  than  those  for  the  first  year  in  six  of  the  ten 
schools  concerned,  and  nearly  equal  in  two  more  of  the  schools. 
It  is  also  evident  that  his  percentages  of  failure  as  reported  for 
the  junior  and  senior  years  are  not  very  different  from  each 
other  in  six  of  the  ten  schools,  although  there  is  no  inclusion  of 
the  drop-outs  in  the  percentages  stated.  The  only  pronounced 
or  actual  decrease  in  the  percentages  of  failures  as  Bliss  reports 
them,  occurs  between  the  sophomore  and  junior  years,  and  it  is 


44    School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

doubtless  a  significant  fact  that  this  decided  drop  appears  at  the 
time  and  place  where  the  opportunity  for  elective  subjects  is 
first  offered  in  many  schools.  Yet  apparently  it  has  not  seemed 
worth  while  to  most  persons  who  report  the  facts  of  failure  to 
compute  separately  from  the  other  subjects  the  percentages  for 
the  3-  and  4-year  required  subjects. 

A  rather  small  decline  is  shown  in  the  percentages  of  failure 
for  the  successive  semesters,  as  quoted  below  for  2,481  high 
school  pupils  of  Paterson^"  (the  average  of  two  semesters),  al- 
though these  percentages  are  based  upon  the  number  of  pupils 
examined  at  the  completion  of  the  semester.  It  may  further  be 
noted  that  these  percentages  do  not  follow  the  same  pupils  by 
semesters,  but  state  the  facts  for  successive  classes  of  pupils. 
The  same  criticisms  may  be  offered  for  the  percentages  as  quoted 
from  Wood^^  for  435  pupils. 

Percentages  of  Pupils  Failing,  by  Semesters 

semesters 

12          3  4  5  6  7          8 

Paterson 17.8     18.4     16.7  15.0  15.6  11.6  9.4       7.4 

Wood 24.5     14.5    29.5  30.0  31.0  7.9  16.2 

OBrien(p.41) 11.5    13.9    14.5  15.1  14.5  15.3  12.1      9.9 

The  above  series  of  percentages  tend  to  agree  at  least  in  show- 
ing little  or  no  decline  in  the  percentages  of  failure  for  the  first 
five  or  six  semesters  in  school. 

Another  tendency  to  conceal  important  features  in  relation  to 
the  facts  of  school  failures  may  be  found  in  the  grouping  to- 
gether of  non-continuous  and  continuous  subjects,  the  latter  of 
which  are  generally  required.  F.  W.  Johnson  found  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago  High  School^^  that  the  percentage  of  failures 
by  successive  years  indicated  little  or  no  decrease  for  mathe- 
matics and  for  English  (which  were  3-  and  4-year  subjects  re- 
spectively). The  figures  were  based  on  the  records  for  a  period 
of  two  years.  In  regard  to  St.  Paul,  it  was  possible  to  compute 
similar  information  from  the  data  which  were  available."  The 
percentages  of  failure  are  presented  separately  in  each  case  for 
Latin,  German,  and  French,  not  more  than  two  years  of  which 
are  required  in  the  schools  referred  to  above.  A  contrast  is 
thus  presented  that  is  both  interesting  and  suggestive. 


Prognosticating  Occurrence  of  or  Number  of  Failures    45 
Percentages  of  Pupils  Failing,  by  Years.   (Johnson,  F.  W.) 

YEARS  YEARS 

12         3         4  12         3         4 

English...  18.1      9.5     18.4     14.4        Latin 14.1      9.0  2.9 

Math 12.9    12.9    13.6      5.6        German...  12.4      7.4 

French...  14.3      9.6  3.1 

PERCENTAGES  OF  PUPILS  FAILING,  BY  SEMESTERS.      (St.  Paul) 

SEMESTERS 

12  3  4  5  6      7      8 

English  and  Math 17,8     18.0    16.3    16.9      8.1     14.0     ..      .. 

Latin,  German,  French 17.6    17.5    15.1      7.6      3.0         


Apparently  the  full  story  has  by  no  means  been  told  when  we 
simply  say  that  there  is  a  general  decline  in  the  percentages  of 
failure  by  years  or  semesters.  First,  the  failures  of  the  drop- 
outs should  be  included,  so  far  as  it  is  at  all  feasible ;  second, 
the  percentage  should  be  based  on  the  total  enrollment  in  the 
subject,  not  on  the  final  product,  if  we  wish  to  disclose  the  real 
situation;  third,  the  continuous  or  required  subjects  should  be 
distinguished  in  order  to  give  a  full  statement  of  the  facts.  On 
page  41  are  presented  the  percentages  of  failure  for  the  1,125 
failing  graduates  alone,  as  found  in  this  study,  the  greater  por- 
tion of  whose  work,  as  it  actually  happened,  consisted  of  3-  and 
4-year  subjects  continuous  from  the  time  of  entrance,  and  for 
whom  the  percentages  of  failure  increase  to  the  ninth  semester, 

7.   Similarity  of  Facts  for  Boys  and  Girls 

Nowhere  is  there  any  definite  indication  that  any  of  these 
factors  of  prognosis  operates  more  distinctly  or  more  pro- 
nouncedly on  either  boys  or  girls.  Some  variations  do  occur, 
but  differences  between  the  sexes  in  personal  attitudes,  social 
interests,  or  conventional  standards  may  account  for  slight 
differences  such  as  have  been  already  noted.  To  simplify  the 
statement  of  facts,  no  comparison  of  facts  for  boys  and  girls 
has,  in  general,  been  attempted  where  there  was  only  similarity 
to  be  shown. 

A  Summary  of  Chapter  III 

The  influence  of  non-attendance  as  a  factor  in  school  failure 
is  partly  provided  for  here,  but  no  statistical  data  were  secured. 


46     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

The  percentage  of  physical  and  mental  defects  are  doubtless 
comparatively  small  for  high  school  pupils  except  in  the  case  of 
vision. 

The  facts  regarding  size  of  classes  were  unobtainable 

The  pupils  are  distributed  by  their  ages  of  entrance  from  12  to 
20,  with  the  mode  of  the  distribution  at  15.  The  younger  en- 
tering pupils  are  distinctly  more  successful  in  escaping  failure. 
They  are  also  strikingly  more  successful  in  their  ability  to 
graduate. 

The  older  pupils  who  fail  have  a  higher  percentage  of  failure 
on  the  subjects  taken. 

The  first  year's  record  has  real  prognostic  value  for  pupils 
persisting  more  than  three  semesters.  But  57  per  cent  of  those 
leaving  earlier  have  no  failures.  This  includes  nearly  60  per  cent 
of  all  the  non-failing  pupils,  but  less  than  32  per  cent  of  the 
failing  ones  have  gone  that  early. 

Prediction  of  failure  by  subjects  is  relatively  easy  and  sure, 
and  the  later  years  seem  more  productive  of  this  result. 

The  percentage  of  failure  on  the  total  possibility  of  failure 
increases  with  the  time  period  up  to  the  seventh  semester.  The 
same  facts  are  true  for  the  graduates  when  considered  alone. 
Fifty-six  per  cent  of  the  failures  for  the  graduates  occur  after  the 
second  year.  The  longer  stay  in  school  actually  begets  an  in- 
crease of  failures.  The  boys  and  girls  are  similarly  affected  by 
these  factors  of  prognosis. 

References 

1.  Keyes,  C.  H.     Progress  Through  the  Grades,  pp.  23,  62. 

2.  Terman,  L.  M.     The  Measurement  oj  Intelligence,  p.  68. 

3.  Bronner,  A.  E.     Psychology  oj  Special  Abilities  and  Disabilities. 

4.  Ayres,  L.  P.    "  The  Effect  of  Physical  Defects  on   School  Progress," 

Psychological  Clinic,  3:71. 

5.  Gulick,  L.  H.,  Ayres,  L.  P.     Medical  Inspection  in  the  Schools,  p.  194. 

6.  Standards  of  The   North   Central  Association  of  Colleges  and  Second- 

ary Schools. 

7.  Hall-Quest,  A.  L.,  in  Johnson's  Modern  High  School,  p.  270. 

8.  King,  I.     The  High  School  Age,  p.  195. 

9.  VanDenburg,  J.  K.      The  Elimination  of  Pupils  from  Public  Second- 

ary Schools,  p.  113. 

10.  Slattery,  M.     The  Girl  in  Her  Teens,  p.  20. 

11.  Wooley,  H.  T.     "  Facts  About  the  Working  Children  of  Cincinnati," 

Elementary  School  Teacher,  14:135. 


Prognosticating  Occurrence  of  or  Numhcr  of  Failures    47 

12.  Report  of  Commission  on  Industrial  and  Technical  Education  (Mass.). 

1906,  p.  92. 

13.  Barrows,  Alice  P.     Report  of   Vocational  Guidance  Survey  (New  York 

City),  Public  Education  Association,  New  York  City,  Bull.  No.  9, 
1912. 

14.  Holley,   C.   E.      The   Relationship   Between  Persistence  in  School  and 

Home  Conditions,  Fifteenth  Yearbook,  Pt.  II,  p.  98. 

15.  Bliss,    D.   C.      "  High   School   Failures,"    Educational   Administration 

and  Supervision,  Vol.  III. 

16.  Annual  Report  of  Board  of  Education,  Paterson,  1915. 

17.  Wood,  J.  "W.     "  A  Study  of  Failures,"  School  and  Society,  I,  679. 

18.  Johnson,  F.  W.     "  A  Study  of  High  School  Grades,"  School  Review. 

19-13. 

19.  Strayer,  G.  D.,  Coffman,  L.  D.,  Prosser,  C.  A.     Report  of  a  Survey 

of  the  School  System  of  St.  Paul,  1917. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HOW  MUCH  IS  THE  GRADUATION  OR  THE  PER- 
SISTENCE IN  SCHOOL  CONDITIONED  BY  THE 
OCCURRENCE  OR  THE  NUMBER  OF  FAILURES  ? 

1.  Comparison  of  the  Failing  and  the  Non-Failing  Groups 
IN  Reference  to  Graduation  and  Persistence 

It  has  been  noted  in  section  1  of  Chapter  II  that  58.1  per  cent 
of  all  the  graduates  have  school  failures.  Here  we  mean  to 
carry  the  analysis  and  comparison  in  reference  to  graduation 
and  failure  somewhat  further.  To  this  end  the  following  dis- 
tribution is  significant. 

Distribution  of  Pupils  in  Reference  to  Failure  and  Graduation 

The  Non-failing  Pupils — Graduating    The  Failing  Pupils — Graduating 

Totals 2568  811(31.5%)  3573  1125(31.5%) 

Boys 1(X)1  307(30.6%)  1645  489(29.7%) 

Girls 1567  504(32.1%)  1928  639(33.0%) 

We  have  presented  here  the  numbers  that  graduate  without 
failures,  together  with  the  total  group  to  which  they  belong,  and 
the  same  for  the  graduates  who  have  failed.  By  a  mere  process 
of  subtraction  we  may  determine  the  number  of  non-graduates,  as 
well  as  the  number  of  these  that  fail,  and  then  compute  the  per- 
centage of  the  non-graduates  who  fail.  Thus  we  get  58.2  per 
cent  (boys — 62.5,  girls — 54.9)  as  the  percentage  of  the  non- 
graduates  failing.  It  is  apparent  at  once  that  this  is  almost  iden- 
tical with  the  percentage  of  failure  for  the  ones  who  graduate 
(Chapter  II),  but  for  the  non-graduates  the  boys  and  girls  are  a 
little  further  apart.  It  may  be  remarked  in  this  connection  that 
no  effort  was  made  to  include  any  of  the  808  non-credited  pupils 
among  the  ones  who  fail.  The  inclusion  of  60  per  cent  of  this 
number  as  potentially  failing  pupils,  as  was  done  in  Chapter  II, 
will  raise  the  above  percentage  of  failing  non-graduates  by  11.5 
per  cent. 

48 


Hozi.'  Much  Is  Graduation  or  Persistence  Conditioned?    49 

The  above  distribution  of  pupils  enables  us  to  determine  what 
percentage  of  the  failing  and  of  the  non-failing  groups  gradu- 
ate. These  percentages  are  identical — 31.5  per  cent  in  each  case. 
The  boys  and  girls  are  further  apart  in  the  former  group  (boys — 
29.7,  girls — 33)  than  in  the  latter  group  (boys — 30.6,  girls — 
32.1).  It  follows,  then,  that  the  percentage  who  graduate  of 
all  the  original  entrants  is  31.5  per  cent.  This  fact  varies  by 
schools  from  20.8  per  cent  to  45.4  per  cent.  And  such  percentage 
is  in  each  case  exclusive  of  the  pupils  who  join  the  class  by  trans- 
fers from  other  schools  or  classes.  Our  particular  interest  is  not 
in  how  many  pupils  the  school  graduates  in  any  year,  but  rather 
in  how  many  of  the  entering  pupils  in  any  one  year  stay  to  grad- 
uate. 

The  greater  persistence  of  the  failing  non-graduates,  or  the 
greater  failing  for  the  more  persistent  non-graduates,  has  already 
been  given  some  attention  in  both  Chapters  II  and  III.  In  the 
following  distribution  the  non-graduates  alone  are  considered. 
The  number  persisting  in  school  to  each  succeeding  semester  is 
first  stated,  and  then  the  percentage  of  that  number  which  is 
composed  of  the  non-failing  pupils  is  given. 

Distribution  of  the  Non-graduates  According  to  the  Numbers  Per- 
sisting TO  Each  Successive  Semester 


BY  END 

of  semesters 

Total  (4205) .... 
Per  Cent  of  Non- 
failing  (41.8).. 

1          2 

2787     1957 

24.5    20.0 

3             4 

1572      999 
16.4     13.9 

5        6        7 
761     390    234 

12.7    7.2    3.8 

8 
60 

1.6 

9 
23 

0 

10 

4 

Only  20  per  cent  of  the  non-graduates  who  remain  to  the  end 
of  the  first  year  (second  semester)  do  not  fail.  Although  the  fail- 
ing non-graduates  outnumber  the  non-failing  ones  when  all  the 
pupils  who  finally  drop  out  are  considered,  their  percentage 
of  the  majority  increases  rapidly  for  each  successive  semester 
continued  in  school.  That  the  non-failing  non-graduates  are  in 
general  not  the  ones  who  persist  long  in  school  is  shown  by  these 
percentages. 

2.  The  Number  of  Failures  and  the  Years  to  Graduate 

The  following  table  shows  how  the  number  of  failures  are  re- 
lated to  the  time  period  required  for  graduation.     The  distribu- 


50     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 


tion  in  Table  VIII  shows  a  range  from  1  to  25  failures  per 
pupil,  and  a  time  period  for  graduation  ranging  from  3  to  6 
years.     It  is  evident  from  this  distribution  that  the  increase  of 

TABLE  VIII 

Distribution  of  Pupils  Graduating,  According  to  the  Total  Failures 

Each   and   the   Time   Taken   to   Graduate 


YEARS  TO  graduate 

3^         4        41 


5i 


NO.    OF 
FAILURES 

0  Boys 20 

Girls 54 

1  Boys 2 

Girls 5 

2  Boys 2 

Girls 2 

3  Boys 0 

Girls 1 

4  Boys 1 

Girls 4 

5  Boys 0 

Girls 1 

6  Boys 

Girls 

7  Boys 

Girls 

8  Boys 

Girls 

9  Boys 

Girls 

10      Boys 

Girls 

11-15      Boys 

Girls 

16-20      Boys 

Girls 

21-25      Boys 

Girls 

Total       Boys 25 

Girls 67 


6     TOTALS 


23 
26 

244 
380 

12 
30 

8 
14 

• 

307 
504 

10 
8 

59 
83 

7 
13 

2 
5 

• 

80 
114 

2 
3 

64 
88 

7 
11 

7 
8 

0 
1 

82 
113 

6 
1 

27 
53 

5 
6 

4 
3 

,  , 

42 
64 

1 
6 

44 
57 

0 
8 

8 

4 

1 
1 

55 
80 

1 
2 

41 
26 

2 

7 

3 
5 

47 
41 

0 

1 

29 
29 

6 
3 

3 

8 

0  38 

1  42 

2 
1 

12 
13 

7 
4 

7 
5 

28 
23 

0 

1 

17 
16 

7 
9 

8 

7 

1     33 
0     33 

0 

1 

6 

7 

5 
8 

5 
8 

0 

1 

0  16 

1  26 

1 
1 

6 
14 

4 
5 

6 
2 

0 

1 

17 
23 

0 

1 

9 
11 

18 
25 

11 
14 

0 

1 

1     39 

4     56 

2 

2 

2 
5 

4 
2 

1 

2 

1     10 
0     11 

1 
0 

0 
1 

0 

4 

1 
3 

0  2 

1  9 

46 
52 

561 
780 

82 
135 

76 
89 

3 
10 

3    796 
7    1140 

How  Much  Is  Graduation  or  Persistence  Conditioned?     51 

time  period  for  graduating  is  not  commensurate  with  the  num- 
ber of  failures  for  the  individual.  By  far  the  largest  number 
graduate  in  four  years  in  spite  of  their  numerous  failures. 
Nearly  70  per  cent  of  the  failing  graduates  require  four  years 
or  less  for  graduation.  The  number  who  finish  in  three  years 
is  greater  than  the  number  who  require  either  five  and  one-half 
or  six  years.  The  median  number  of  failures  per  pupil  is  4.  The 
pupils  with  fewer  than  4  failures  who  take  more  than  four  years 
to  graduate  are  not  representative  of  any  particular  school  in  this 
composite,  nor  are  those  having  10  or  more  failures  who  take 
less  than  5  years  to  graduate. 

In  reading  Table  VIII,  we  find  that  20  boys  and  54  girls  who 
have  no  failures  graduate  in  three  years ;  2  boys  and  5  girls 
fail  once  and  graduate  in  3  years ;  10  boys  and  8  girls  have 
one  failure  and  graduate  in  3^  years,  and  so  on.  The  median 
period  is  4  years  for  those  with  no  failures  and  it  remains  at  4 
for  all  who  have  fewer  than  9  failures ;  but  the  median  time 
period  is  not  above  5  years  for  the  highest  number  of  failures. 

3.  The  Number  of  Failures  and  the  Semester  of  Dropping 
Out  for  the  Non-graduates 

The  pages  preceding  this  point  have  given  evidence  that  the 
failing  pupils  are  not  mainly  the  ones  who  drop  out  early.  But 
we  may  still  ask  whether  the  number  of  failures  per  individual 
tends  to  determine  how  early  he  will  be  eliminated?  This  ques- 
tion calls  for  the  facts  of  the  next  table.  In  this  table  the  semes- 
ters of  dropping  out  are  indicated  at  the  top.  The  failures  range 
as  high  as  25  per  pupil,  and  it  is  evident  that  not  all  pupils  have 
left  school  until  the  eleventh  semester.  The  distribution  in- 
cludes the  1156  boys  and  the  1292  girls  who  failed  and  did  not 
graduate ;  also  the  694  boys  and  the  1063  girls  who  dropped  out 
without  failing.  The  wide  distribution  of  these  non-graduates, 
both  relative  to  the  number  of  failures  and  to  the  time  of  drop- 
ping out,  is  forcibly  brought  to  our  attention  by  the  table  which 
follows. 


52     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 


TABLE  IX 

Distribution  of  the  Non-Graduates,  According  to  the  Total  Failures 
Each  and  the  Time  of  Dropping  Out 


semester  OF  dropping  out 

NO.  OF 

1    2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10  11  total 

failures 

0 

B.  430  134 
G.  643  163 

40 
89 

41 
78 

15 

27 

24 
45 

7 
12 

3 
5 

0 

1 

..   694 

..  1063 
1 

1 

B.  35   53 
G.  46   65 

B.  52   58 
G.  49   79 

B.  43   41 
G.  54   52 

25 
25 

18 
31 

22 
19 

33 
34 

30 
36 

28 
34 

14 
12 

8 

12 

9 

18 

9 
12 

17 
17 

10 
17 

1 

4 

5 
3 

5 
0 

1 
3 

6 
3 

1 
6 

i 

171 

201 

2 

194 

230 

3 

0 

1 

.   159 
201  ^ 

4 

B.  : 

G.  : 

B. 
G. 

B. 
G. 

27   31 
34   43 

3   13 

2   14 

.   27 
17 

13 
23 

14 
18 

8 
14 

32 
29 

30 

24 

24 
25 

7 
11 

11 
5 

11 
10 

11 
16 

16 
13 

16 
11 

9 
5 

11 
3 

11 
3 

2 
8 

4 
5 

6 
9 

132  ' 

169 

5 

102 

84 

6 

0 
2 

0 

1 

.   103 
92 

7 

B. 
G. 

8 
9 

7 
3 

7 
15 

6 

8 

16 

7 

5 
5 

3 
5 

0 
0 

1 
0 

53 
52 

8 

B. 
G. 

8 
.   10 

3 
5 

14 
15 

6 

7 

11 
10 

6 
6 

5 
6 

•  1 
1 

0 

1 

54 
61 

9 

B. 
G. 

1 
0 

1 
2 

7 
7 

5 
8 

8 
9 

2 
2 

7 
4 

3 

1 

1 

0 

35 
33 

10 

B. 
G. 

2 
2 

2 

1 

10 
6 

2 
5 

7 
9 

6 

4 

10 

4 

0 
0 

39 
31 

11-15 

B. 
G. 

1 
1 

8 
5 

7 
12 

27 
22 

14 
20 

22 
23 

5 
9 

2 
6 

0   86 
2   100 

16-20 

B. 
G. 

1 
0 

0 
2 

8 
3 

3 
3 

6 
12 

3 
6 

3 
2 

0    24 
2    30 

21-25 

B. 
G. 

'i 

2 
3 

1 
3 

1  . 
1  . 

4 
8 

TOTAL 

B.  59 
G.  8^ 

0  376 
28  454 

154 
231 

265 
308 

101 
137 

180 
191 

85 
71 

78 
96 

13 
24 

8 
11 

0  1850 
4  2355 

1757 


372 


424 


360 


301 


186 


195 


105 


115 


68 


70 


186 


54 


12 


4205 


Table  IX  reads  in  a  manner  similar  to  Table  VIII :  430  boys 
and  643  girls,  having  0  failures,  drop  out  in  the  first  semester ; 
35  boys  and  46  girls  drop  out  in  the  first  semester  with  a  single 


Hozv  Much  Is  Graduation  or  Persistence  Conditioned^     53 

failure ;  3  boys  and  2  girls  drop  out  in  the  first  semester  with  five 
failures  each. 

For  a  small  portion  of  these  drop-outs  the  number  of  failures 
is  undoubtedly  the  prime  or  immediate  factor  in  securing  their 
elimination.  It  seems  probable  that  such  is  the  situation  for 
most  of  those  pupils  who  drop  out  after  50  per  cent  or  more  of 
their  school  work  has  resulted  in  failures.  Yet  a  few  of  these 
pupils  manage  to  continue  for  an  extended  time  in  school,  as  the 
following  distribution  shows. 

Drop-Outs  Failing  in  50  Per  Cent  or  More  of  Their  Total  Work,  and 
Their  Distribution  by  Semesters  of  Dropping  Out 


semesters 

1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

7 

8 

9 

10 

221  B              81 

69 

17 

24 

7 

15 

4 

2 

1 

1 

264  G             98 

68 

20 

35 

14 

10 

5 

8 

5 

1 

%of  Total  36.9 

28.2 

7.6 

12.2 

4.3 

5.2 

1.9 

2.0 

1.2 

.4 

This  grouping  includes  485  pupils,  or  11.5  per  cent  of  the 
total  number  of  4,205  drop-outs.  But  whatever  the  part  may  be 
that  is  played  by  failing  it  is  evident  that  it  does  not  operate 
to  cause  their  early  loss  to  the  school  in  nearly  all  of  these 
instances.  It  may  be  noted  here  that  it  is  difficult  to  find  any 
justification  for  allowing  or  forcing  these  pupils  to  endure  two, 
three,  or  four  years  of  a  kind  of  training  for  which  they  have 
shown  themselves  obviously  unfitted.  To  be  sure,  they  have 
satisfied  a  part  of  these  failures  by  repetitions  or  otherwise, 
but  only  to  go  on  adding  more  failures.  A  device  of  '  super- 
annuation '  is  employed  in  certain  schools  by  which  a  pupil  who 
has  failed  in  half  of  his  work  for  two  semesters,  and  is  sixteen 
years  of  age,  is  supposed  to  be  dropped  automatically  from  the 
school.  This  device  seems  designed  to  evade  a  difficulty  in  the  ab- 
sence of  any  real  solution  for  it,  and  harmonizes  with  the  school 
aims  that  are  prescribed  in  terms  of  subject  matter  rather  than 
in  terms  of  the  pupils'  needs.  From  the  standpoint  of  the  indi- 
vidual pupil  his  peculiar  qualities  are  not  likely  to  be  fashioned 
to  the  highest  degree  of  usefulness  by  this  procedure.  It  simply 
serves  notice  that  the  pupil  must  make  the  adjustment  needed, 
as  the  school  cannot  or  will  not. 

Notwithstanding  the  testimony  furnished  by  the  accumula- 
tion of  failures  shown  in  Table  IX,  there  are  grounds  for  be- 


54    School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

lieving  that  for  the  major  portion  of  all  the  non-graduates  the 
number  of  failures  is  not  a  prime  nor  perhaps  a  highly  important 
cause  of  their  dropping  out  of  school.  This  conviction  seems 
to  be  substantiated  by  the  statement  of  percentages  below. 

The  Percentage  of  Non-Graduates  Who  Drop  Out  With 


0 

1  or  0 

2  or  fewer 

3  or  fewer 

4  or  fewer 

5  or  fewer 

Failure 

Failure 

Failures 

Failures 

Failures 

Failures 

41.8 

50.6 

60.7 

69.2 

76.4 

80.8 

The  fact  that  nearly  81  per  cent  of  the  non-graduates  have 
only  5  failures  or  less,  taken  in  comparison  with  the  fact  that  ap- 
proximately one  fourth  of  the  failing  graduates  have  8  or  more 
failures,  argues  that  the  number  of  failures  alone  can  hardly  be 
considered  one  of  the  larger  factors  in  causing  the  dropping  out. 
In  a  report  concerning  the  working  children  of  Cincinnati,  H.  T. 
Wooley  remarks^  that  "two-thirds  of  our  children  leaving  the  pub- 
lic schools  are  the  failures."  This  seems  to  suppose  failing  a 
large  cause  of  the  dropping  out.  But  this  investigation  of  fail- 
ure indicates  that  the  percentage  of  failure  for  those  leaving  is 
no  higher  than  for  the  ones  who  do  not  leave.  A  similar  illus- 
tration is  credited  to  O.  W.  Caldwell-,  who  makes  reference  to 
the  large  percentage  of  the  failing  pupils  who  leave  high  school, 
without  taking  any  recognition  of  the  equally  large  percentage 
of  the  failing  pupils  who  continue  in  the  high  school. 

There  is  in  no  sense  any  intention  here  to  condone  the  large 
number  of  failures  simply  because  it  is  pointed  out  that  they  do 
not  operate  chiefly  to  cause  elimination  from  school.  The  above 
facts  may  lead  to  some  such  conviction  as  that  expressed  by 
Wooley,^  after  giving  especial  attention  to  those  who  had  left 
school,  that  "the  real  force  that  is  sending  a  majority  of  these 
children  out  into  the  industrial  field  is  their  own  desire  to  go  to 
work,  and  behind  this  desire  is  frequently  the  dissatisfaction  with 
school."  A  somewhat  similar  conviction  seems  to  be  shared  by 
King,^  in  saying  that  "the  pupil  who  yields  unwillingly  to  the 
narrow  round  of  school  tasks  .  .  .  will  grasp  at  almost  any 
pretext  to  quit  school."  W.  F.  Book  tabulated  the  reasons  why 
pupils  leave  high  school,*  as  given  by  1,051  pupils.  He  found 
that  discouragement,  loss  of  interest,  and  disappointment  affect 
more    pupils    than    all    the    other    causes    combined.      Likewise 


How  Much  Is  Graduation  or  Persistence  Conditioned f     55 

Bronner  notes^  that  the  '  irrational '  sameness  of  school  proced- 
ure for  all  pupils  often  leads  to  "serious  loss  of  interest  in  school 
work,  discouragement,  truancy,  and  disciplinary  problems." 
Still  it  may  be  that  the  worst  consequences  of  multiplied  failures 
are  not  to  those  dropping  out.  W.  D.  Lewis  observes*'  that  the 
failing  pupil  "speedily  comes  to  accept  himself  as  a  failure,"  and 
that  "the  disaster  to  many  who  stay  in  the  schools  is  greater  than 
to  those  who  are  shoved  out."  To  the  same  point  Hanus  tells'' 
us  that  "during  the  school  period  aversion  and  evasion  are  more 
frequently  cultivated  than  power  and  skill,  through  the  forced 
pursuit  of  uninteresting  subjects."  A  pupil  who  acquires  the 
habit  of  failing  and  the  attitude  of  accepting  it  as  a  necessary 
evil  may  soon  give  up  trying  to  win  and  become  satisfied  to  ac- 
cept himself  as  less  gifted,  or  even  to  accept  life  in  general  as 
necessarily  a  matter  of  repeated  failures.  In  a  similar  connec- 
tion, James  E.  Russell  says,^  "the  boy  who  becomes  accustomed 
to  second  place  soon  fails  to  think  at  his  best."  Such  psycho- 
logical results  in  regard  to  habits  and  attitude  accruing  from 
repeated  failures  are  both  certain  and  insidious.  And  an  edu- 
cation which  purports  to  be  for  all  and  to  offer  the  highest 
training  to  each  must  abandon  the  inculcation  of  attitudes  of 
mind  so  detrimental  to  the  individual  and  to  the  very  society 
which  educates  him. 

4.  The  Percentages  That  the  Non-Gr.\duate  Groups  Form 
OF  THE  Pupils  Who  Have  Each  Successively  Higher 
Number  of  Failures 

By  merely  adding  the  columns  of  totals  for  Tables  VHI  and 
IX,  we  are  able  to  obtain  the  full  number  of  pupils  who  have 
each  number  of  failures  from  1  to  25.  We  may  readily  secure 
the  percentages  for  the  non-graduates  in  each  of  these  groups 
by  referring  again  to  the  numbers  in  the  totals  column  of  Table 
IX.    The  following  series  of  percentages  are  thus  obtained. 

The  Percentage  Formed  by  Non-Graduates  With  0, 1, 2, 3,  etc.  Failures 
On  the  Total  Number  Who  Have  0,  1,  2,  3,  etc..  Failures 

No.  of  Failures.  0 

Percent 68.4 

No.  of  Failures.  9 

Per  Cent 61.8 


1 

65.7 

2 
68.5 

3 

77.2 

4 
69.0 

5 

68.0 

6 
70.6 

7 
67.3 

8 
63.5 

10 
63.6 

11 
69.0 

12 
61.2 

13 
66.0 

14 
65.3 

15 
70.0 

16 
61.5 

17  + 
69.4 

56     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

That  these  percentages  would  be  higher  for  the  non-gradu- 
ates than  for  the  graduates  (that  is,  above  50  per  cent)  would 
certainly  be  expected  by  a  glance  at  their  higher  numbers  in 
every  group  of  their  distribution.  But  it  would  hardly  be  expected 
by  most  of  us  that  the  percentages  would  show  no  general  tend- 
ency to  rise  as  the  failures  per  pupil  increase  in  number,  yet 
such  is  the  truth  as  found  here.  The  reverse  of  these  facts  was 
found  by  Aaron  I.  Dotey,  with  a  smaller  group  of  high  school 
pupils®  (1,397),  studied  in  one  of  the  New  York  City  high 
schools.  Still  he  also  asserts  that  failure  in  studies  is  not  a  cause 
of  elimination  to  the  extent  that  it  is  generally  supposed  to  be. 
We  may  gain  some  advantage  for  judging  the  general  tendency 
of  the  extended  and  varied  series  of  percentages  above,  by  com- 
puting them  in  groups  of  larger  size,  thus  yielding  a  briefer 
series,  as  follows : 

(A  Condensed  Form  of  the  Preceding  Statement) 

No.  of  Failures.  . .  0        1  to  4      5  to  8      9  to  12      13  to  16      17  to  25 

Percent 68.4      67.6        67.3         63.9  65.7  69.4 

Not  only  do  the  percentages  of  non-graduates  not  increase 
relatively  as  the  numbers  of  failure  go  higher,  but  there  is  a 
slight  general  decline  in  these  percentages  until  we  reach  '17  or 
more'  failures  per  pupil.  Then  for  '17  to  25'  failures  per  pupil 
there  is  an  increase  of  only  1  per  cent  over  that  for  0  failures. 
The  number  of  failures  does  not  seem  directly  to  condition  the 
pupil's  ability  to  graduate  or  to  continue  to  in  school. 

5.   Time  Extension  for  the  Failing  Graduates 

We  shall  now  inquire  further  what  extension  of  time  for 
graduating  characterizes  the  failing  graduates  in  comparison 
with  the  non-failing  ones. 

The  distribution  according  to  the  period  for  graduation  for 
the  1,936  pupils  who  graduate  was  shown  by  the  summary  lines 
of  Table  VIII.  In  the  same  table  the  non-failing  graduates  are 
included  (but  distinct).  No  pupil  graduates  in  less  than  three 
years  and  none  takes  longer  than  six  years ;  9.8  per  cent  of  the 
number  finish  in  less  than  4  years ;  19.7  per  cent  take  more  than 
4  years.     The  small  number  that  finish  earlier  than  four  years 


Hozv  Much  Is  Graduation  or  Persistence  Conditioned?     57 

may  be  due  in  part  to  the  single  annual  graduation  in  several  of 
the  schools.  Some  of  the  schools  admitting  two  classes  each 
year  graduated  only  one,  and  the  records  made  it  plain  that  some 
pupils  had  a  half  year  more  credit  than  was  needed  for  graduat- 
ing. Considering,  however,  that  about  42  per  cent  of  the  gradu- 
ates had  no  failures,  they  should  have  been  able  to  speed  up 
more  on  the  time  period  of  getting  through.  They  were  doubt- 
less not  unable  to  do  that.  But  some  principals  hold  the  convic- 
tion that  four  years  will  result  in  a  rounding  out  of  the  pupil 
more  than  commensurate  with  the  extended  time.  More  than 
35  per  cent  of  those  who  did  finish  in  less  than  four  years  are 
graduates  who  had  failed  from  1  to  11  times.  In  the  conven- 
tional period  of  four  years  77  per  cent  of  the  non-failing  and 
64  per  cent  of  the  failing  graduates  complete  their  work  and 
graduate  (see  p.  59,  for  the  means  employed).  The  percentages 
of  non-failing  graduates  for  each  time  period  are  given  below. 

The  Percentages  of  Non-Failing  Graduates  for  Each  Period 

Time  Period  in  Years 3  §  4  ^  5^6 

Per  Cent  of  Non-Failing . .      80.4      50.0      46.5      19.3      13.3 

This  continuous  decline  of  percentages  representing  the  non- 
failing  graduates  shows  that  they  have  an  evident  advantage  in 
regard  to  the  time  period  for  graduating.  Their  percentages  are 
high  for  the  shorter  time  periods  and  low  for  the  longer  periods. 
But  by  reference  to  Table  VIII  we  quickly  find  that  the  slight 
extension  of  the  time  period  for  the  failing  graduates  is  not  at  all 
commensurate  with  the  number  of  failures  which  they  have. 
The  failures  are  provided  for  in  various  ways,  as  Chapter  V 
will  explain.  No  striking  differences  are  observed  for  the  boys 
and  girls  in  any  division  of  this  chapter. 

A  Summary  of  Chapter  IV 

The  percentages  of  graduates  and  of  non-graduates  that  fail 
are  almost  identical. 

The  percentages  of  the  failing  pupils  who  graduate  and  of  the 
non-failing  pupils  who  graduate  are  identical  (31.5  per  cent)  ; 
hence,  graduation  is  not  perceptibly  conditioned  by  the  occur- 
rence of  failure. 


58     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

The  non-failing  non-graduates  do  not  persist  long  in  school,  as 
compared  with  the  failing  non-graduates.  The  short  persistence 
partly  accounts  for  their  avoidance  of  failure. 

As  the  number  of  failures  per  pupil  increase  for  the  failing 
graduates,  the  time  extension  is  not  commensurate  with  the 
number  of  failures. 

For  11.5  per  cent  of  the  non-graduates  who  fail  in  50  per  cent 
or  more  of  their  work,  failure  is  probably  a  chief  cause  of  drop- 
ping out. 

Failure  is  probably  not  a  prime  cause  of  dropping  out  for 
most  of  the  non-graduates,  as  80  per  cent  have  only  5  failures 
or  fewer. 

The  worst  consequences  of  failure  are  perhaps  in  acquiring  the 
habit  of  failing,  and  in  coming  to  accept  one's  self  as  a  failure. 
The  number  of  drop-outs  does  not  tend  to  increase  as  the  num- 
ber of  failures  per  pupil  increases. 

The  time  period  for  graduating  ranges  from  three  to  six  years, 
with  approximately  79  per  cent  of  all  graduates  finishing  in  four 
years  or  less.  The  failing  graduates  take,  on  the  average,  a  lit- 
tle longer  time  than  the  non-failing,  but  not  an  increase  that  is 
proportionate  to  the  number  of  failures. 

The  boys  and  girls  present  no  striking  differences  in  the  facts 
of  Chapter  IV. 

References : 

1.  Wooley,  H.  T.     "  Facts  About  the  Working  Children  of  Cincinnati," 

Elementary  School  Teacher,  Vol.  XIV,  135. 

2.  Caldwell,  O.  W.     "  Laboratory  Method  and  High  School  Efficiency," 

Popular  Science  Monthly,  82-243. 

3.  King,  Irving.     The  High  School  Age. 

4.  Book,  W.  F.     "  Why  Pupils  Fail,"  Pedagogical  Seminary,  11:204. 

5.  Bronner,  A.  E.     The  Psychology  of  Special  Abilities  and  Disabilities, 

p.  6. 

6.  Lewis,  W.  D.     Democracy's  High  School,  pp.  28,  37. 

7.  Hanus,  P.  H.  School  Aims  and  Values. 

8.  Russell,  J.  E.  "  Co-education  in  High  School.    Is  It  a  Failure?  "    Reprint 

from  Good  Housekeeping. 

9.  Dotey,  A.  I.     An  Investigation  of  Scholarship   Records  of  High  School 

Pupils.    High  School  Teachers  Association  of  New  York  City.    Bul- 
letins 1911-14,  p.  220. 


CHAPTER  V 


ARE  THE  SCHOOL  AGENCIES  EMPLOYED  IN  REM- 
EDYING FAILURES  ADEQUATE  FOR  THE 
PURPOSE? 

The  caption  of  this  chapter  suggests  the  inquiry  as  to  what 
are  the  agencies  employed  by  the  school  for  this  purpose,  and 
how  extensively  does  each  function?  The  different  means  em- 
ployed and  the  number  attempting  in  the  various  ways  to  satisfy 
for  the  failures  charged  are  classified  and  stated  below,  but  the 
success  of  each  method  is  considered  later  in  its  turn.  One 
might  think  also  of  time  extension,  night  school,  summer  school, 
correspondence  courses,  and  tutoring  as  possible  factors  deserv- 
ing to  be  included  here  in  the  list  of  remedies  for  failures  made. 
The  matter  of  time  extension  has  already  been  partly  treated  in 
Chapter  IV,  while  the  facts  for  the  other  agencies  mentioned  are 
rather  uncertain  and  difficult  to  trace  on  the  records.  However, 
they  all  tend  to  eventuate  finally  in  one  of  the  methods  noted  be- 
low. 


The  Disposition  Made  of  the  School  Failures 


Total 
No. 


Repeat 
the 


School  Exam. 


Both 
Contin.  No  Repeat 


Failures    Subject    Final  or  Spec. 


8348  B . . 

9612  G.. 

Per  Cent 

of  Total 


3695 
5001 

48.4 


821 
1025 

10.3 


Regents'     Discon.  or  Repet. 

Exam's.  Substitution  or  Exam. 

1333            2471  259 

1752            1929  249 


17.2 


24.5 


2.8 


and 

Exam. 

231 

344 

3.2 


It  is  obvious  from  these  percentages  that  school  practice  puts 
an  inclusive  faith  in  the  repetition  of  the  subject,  as  48.4  per  cent 
of  all  the  failures  are  referred  to  this  one  remedy  for  the  pur- 
pose of  being  rectified,  although  one  school  made  practically  no 
use  of  this  means  (see  section  5  of  this  chapter).  We  shall  pro- 
ceed to  find  how  effectively  it  operates  and  how  much  this  faith 
is  warranted  by  the  results.     The   cases   above   designated  as 

59 


60     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

both  repeating  and  taking  examination  (3.2  per  cent)  have  been 
counted  twice,  and  their  percentage  must  be  subtracted  from  the 
sum  of  the  percentages  in  order  to  give  100  per  cent. 

1.     Repetition  as  a  Remedy  for  Failures 

We  already  know  how  many  of  the  failing  pupils  repeat  the 
subject  of  faihire,  but  the  success  attending  such  repetition  is  en- 
titled to  further  attention.  Accordingly,  the  grades  received  in 
the  8,696  repetitions  are  presented  here. 

Grades  Secured  in  the  Subjects  Repeated 

grades 

Total  Repetitions                            A             B              C  D  Inc. 

3695  Boys 63          547          1863  1003  219 

5001  Girls 83          724          2510  1337  347 

Per  Cent  of  Total 1.7        14.7        50.3  33.3 

Less  than  2  per  cent  of  the  repeaters  secure  A's,  while  only 
about  1  in  6  ever  secures  either  an  A  or  a  B.  The  first  three  are 
passing  grades,  with  values  as  explained  in  Chapter  I,  and  D 
represents  failure.  Of  the  repeated  subjects  33.3  per  cent  re- 
sult in  either  a  D  or  an  unfinished  status.  It  is  a  fair  assumption 
that  the  unfinished  grade  usually  bore  pretty  certain  prospects 
of  being  a  failing  grade  if  completed,  and  it  is  so  treated  here. 
There  is  a  difference  of  less  than  1  per  cent  in  the  failures  as- 
signed to  boys  and  girls  for  the  repeated  subjects. 

The  hope  was  entertained  in  the  original  plan  of  this  study  to 
secure  several  other  sorts  of  information  about  the  repeaters,  but 
these  later  proved  to  be  unobtainable.  The  influence  of  repeat- 
ing with  the  same  teacher  as  contrasted  with  a  change  of  teach- 
ers in  the  same  subject,  the  comparative  facts  for  the  repetition 
with  men  or  with  women  teachers,  the  varying  results  for  the 
different  sizes  of  classes,  and  the  apparent  effect  of  supervised 
study  of  some  sort  before  or  after  faihng,  were  all  sought  for  in 
the  records  available ;  but  the  schools  were  not  able  to  provide 
any  definite  and  complete  information  of  the  sorts  here  specified. 

a.  Size  of  Schedule  and  Results  of  Repeating 

It  would  seem  plausible  that  the  failing  pupils  who  were  per- 
mitted and  who  possessed  the  energy  would  want  to  take  one  or 


Arc  Agencies  Employed  in  Remedying  Failures  Adequate?    61 

more  extra  subjects  to  balance  the  previous  loss  of  credit  due  to 
failure.  Then  it  becomes  important  at  once  for  the  administra- 
tive head  to  know  whether  the  proportion  of  failures  bears  a  defi- 
nite relationship  to  the  size  of  the  pupil's  schedule  of  subjects.  A 
normal  schedule  for  most  purposes  and  for  most  of  the  schools 
includes,  on  the  average,  four  subjects  or  twenty  weekly  hours, 
In  this  study  the  schedule  which  each  individual  school  claimed 
as  normal  schedule,  has  been  accepted  as  such,  all  larger  sched- 
ules being  considered  extra  size  and  all  smaller  ones  reduced. 
For  instance,  in  one  of  the  schools  five  subjects  are  considered  a 
normal  schedule  even  though  they  totaled  24  points,  which  is  not 
usual.  But  in  the  other  schools  a  normal  schedule  includes  the 
range  from  18  to  22  points  irrespective  of  those  carried  in  the 
subjects  outside  of  the  classification  included  in  this  study;  while 
above  22  points  is  an  extra  schedule  and  below  18  a  reduced 
schedule  in  the  same  sense  as  above.  For  the  most  part  this 
meant  that  five  or  more  of  such  subjects  form  an  extra  schedule, 
and  that  three  form  a  reduced  schedule.  In  this  manner  all  the 
repeated  subjects  are  classed  as  part  of  a  reduced,  a  normal,  or 
an  extra  sized  schedule  as  follows. 

Size  of  Schedules  for  Pupils  Taking  Repeated  Subjects 

Total                                                             Reduced  Normal  Extra 

3695  Boys 132  1762  180l 

5001  Girls 164  2684  2153 

Per  Cent  of  Total 3.4  51.1  45.5 

This  distribution  indicates  that  relatively  few  of  the  pupils  take 
a  reduced  schedule  in  repeating.  For  the  succeeding  comparison 
with  the  grades  of  extra  schedule  pupils,  those  having  a  normal 
or  reduced  schedule  are  grouped  together. 

Grades  for  Subjects  Repeated  by  Failing  Pupils  Who  Carried 
A  Reduced  or  Normal  Schedule 

Total  Repetitions A  B  C  D 

1894  Boys 34  259  894        541         166 

2848  Girls 44  361         1319        840        284 

Per  Cent  of  Total 1.6        13.1        46.7  38.6 

In  this  distribution  are  the  grades  for  4742  instances  of  repeti- 
tion.   Of  these,  38.6  per  cent  fail  to  pass  after  repeating.     It  is 


62     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

not  possible  to  say  definitely  how  many  of  these  pupils  actually 
determine  their  schedule  by  a  free  choice,  and  how  many  are  re- 
stricted by  school  authorities  or  by  home  influence.  But  certain 
it  is  that  a  policy  of  opposition  exists  in  some  schools  and  with 
some  teachers  to  allowing  repeaters  to  carry  more  than  a  pre- 
scribed schedule ;  and  in  most  schools  at  least  some  form  of  dis- 
crimination or  regulation  is  exercised  in  this  matter.  It  will  ap- 
pear from  the  next  distribution  that  a  rule  of  uniformity  in  re- 
gard to  size  of  schedule,  without  regard  to  the  individual  pupils, 
is  here,  as  elsewhere,  lacking  in  wisdom  and  is  in  disregard  of  the 
facts. 

Grades  for  the  Subjects  Repeated,  with  an  Extra  Schedule 

Total  Repetitions  A  B  C  D 

1801  Boys 29  288  969        462  53 

2153  Girls 39  363        1191        497  63 


Per  Cent  of  Total 1.7        16.6        54.5  27.2 

Out  of  the  3,954  repeated  subjects  in  this  distribution,  72.8 
per  cent  secure  passing  grades,  27.2  per  cent  result  in  failures. 
This  means  that  the  repeaters  with  an  extra  schedule  have  11.4 
per  cent  fewer  failing  grades  than  the  repeaters  who  carry  only 
a  normal  or  a  reduced  schedule.  They  also  excel  in  the  per- 
centage of  A's  and  B's  secured  for  repeated  subjects.  In  only 
one  of  the  eight  schools  was  the  reverse  of  these  general  facts 
found  to  be  true.  In  one  other  school  the  difference  was  more 
than  2  to  1  in  favor  of  the  extra  schedule  repeaters  as  judged  by 
the  percentages  of  failure  for  each  group.  It  seems  that  at  least 
three  factors  operate  to  secure  superior  results  for  repeaters  with 
heavier  schedule.  First,  they  are  undoubtedly  a  more  highly  se- 
lected group  in  reference  to  ability  and  energy.  Second,  they  have 
the  advantage  of  the  spur  and  the  motivation  which  comes  from 
the  consciousness  of  a  heavier  responsibility,  and  from  which  ema- 
nates greater  earnestness  of  effort.  Third,  it  is  probable  that 
some  teachers  are  more  helpful  and  considerate  in  the  aiding  and 
grading  of  pupils  who  appear  to  be  working  hard.  It  is,  at  any 
rate,  a  plain  fact  that  those  who  are  willing  and  who  are  per- 
mitted to  take  extra  work  are  the  more  successful.  Excessive 
emphasis  must  not  be  placed  on  the  latter  requirement  alone,  as 


Are  Agencies  EvAployed  in  Remedying  Failures  Adequate?    63 

willingness  frequently  seems  to  be  the  only  essential  condition 
imposed. 

h.  Later  Grades  in  the  Same  Kind  of  Subjects,  Follounng  Repe- 
tition and  Without  It 
Next  in  importance  to  the  degree  of  success  attending  the 
repetition  of  failing  subjects  is  the  effect  which  such  repetition 
has  upon  the  results  in  later  subjects  of  the  same  kind.  By 
tabulating  separately  the  later  grades  in  like  subjects  for  those 
who  had  repeated  and  for  those  who  had  not  repeated  after 
failure,  we  have  the  basis  for  the  following  comparison  of  results. 
It  should  be  stated  at  this  point  that  by  the  same  kind  of  sub- 
ject is  not  meant  a  promiscuous  grouping  together  of  all  language 
or  of  all  history  courses.  But  for  languages  a  later  course  in 
the  same  language  is  implied,  with  the  single  exception  that  Latin 
and  French  are  treated  as  though  French  were  a  mere  continua- 
tion of  the  Latin  preceding  it.  Certain  other  decisions  are  as 
arbitrary.  Greek,  Roman,  and  ancient  history  are  considered  as 
in  the  same  class ;  so  are  modern,  English,  and  American  history. 
The  general  and  the  biological  sciences  are  grouped  together, 
but  the  physical  sciences  are  distinguished  as  a  separate  group. 
The  various  commercial  subjects  are  considered  to  be  of  the 
same  kind  only  when  they  are  the  same  subject.  All  mathe- 
matics subjects  are  regarded  as  the  same  kind  of  subjects  except 
commercial  arithmetic  which  is  classed  as  a  commercial  subject. 
All  the  later  marks  given  in  what  was  regarded  as  the  same  kind 
of  subject,  are  included  in  the  two  distributions  of  grades  which 
follow. 

Later  Grades  in  the  Same  Kind  of  Subject,  After  Failure  and  Repe- 
tition   OF    THE    Subject 

Total                                                        A  B  C  D 

2788  Boys 28  308  1441  1011 

3489  Girls 33  307  1748  1401 

Per  Cent  of  Total 9  9.8  50.8  38.4 

This  distribution  shows  a  marked  tendency  for  failures  in  any 
subject  to  be  accompanied  by  further  failures  (38.4  per  cent), 
not  only  in  the  subjects  for  which  it  is  a  prerequisite  but  in  sub- 
jects closely  akin  to  it.     If  this  tendency  to  succeeding  failures 


64     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

is  really  dependent  upon  thoroughness  in  the  preceding  subject, 
then  the  repetition  of  the  subject  should  offer  an '  opportunity 
for  greater  thoroughness  and  should  prove  to  be  a  distinct  ad- 
vantage in  this  regard.  When  we  compare  the  percentage  of 
failures  above  with  that  in  the  following  distribution,  we  fail  to 
find  evidence  of  such  an  advantage  in  repetition.  The  continuity 
of  failures  by  subjects  and  the  ineffectiveness  of  repetition  are 
pointed  out  by  T.  H.  Briggs^  as  found  in  an  unpublished  study  by 
J.  H.  Riley,  showing  that  after  repeating  and  passing  the  subjects 
of  failure,  33  per  cent  of  those  who  continued  the  subject  failed 
again  the  next  semester. 

ATER  Grades  in  the  Same  Kind  of  Subjects,  F  ollowing  Failure  but 
With  No  Repetition 

Total                                                                  A  B  C  D 

1269  Boys 5  102  639  523 

1191  Girls 8  147  669  367 

Per  Cent  of  Total 5  10.1  53T  36.2 

Here  the  same  pronounced  tendency  is  disclosed  for  the  occur- 
rence of  other  subsequent  failures  in  the  subjects  closely  similar. 
But  for  this  distribution  of  grades,  secured  without  any  preced- 
ing repetitions,  the  unsuccessful  result  is  2.2  per  cent  lower  than 
that  found  for  those  who  had  repeated.  This  group  is  not  so  large 
in  numbers  as  the  one  above,  and  undoubtedly  there  is  some  dis- 
tinct element  of  pupil  selection  involved,  for  it  is  not  easy  to 
believe  that  the  repetition  should  work  a  positive  injury  to  the 
later  grades.  Nevertheless,  our  faith  in  the  worth  of  uncon- 
ditional repetitions  should  properly  be  disturbed  by  such  dis- 
closures. 

c.  The  Grades  in  Repeated  Subjects  and  in  the  Nezv  Work,  for 
the  Same  Semester  and  the  Same  Pupils 
If  it  is  granted  that  the  teachers  of  the  repeaters  are  equally 
good  as  compared  with  the  others,  then  the  previous  familiarity 
with  the  work  that  is  being  repeated  might  be  expected  to  serve 
as  an  advantage  in  its  favor  when  compared  with  the  new  and 
advanced  work  in  other  subjects.  But  the  grades  for  the  new 
and  advanced  work  as  presented  below,  and  the  grades  for  the 
repeated  subjects  as  presented  earlier  in  this  chapter  (section  1), 


Arc  Agencies  Employed  in  Remedying  Failures  Adequate?    65 

deny  the  validity  of  such  an  assumption  and  give  us  a  different 
version  of  the  facts. 

The  Grades  Secured  in  New  Work,  at  Same  Time  and  by  Same  Pupils 
AS  the  Grades  Secured  in  the  Repeated  Subjects 

Total  A  B            C  D 

11,029  Boys 256  2225  5543  3005 

11,941  Girls 198  2064  6604  3075 

Per  Cent  of  Total 1.9  18.6  53.1  26.4 

The  facts  not  only  show  a  lower  percentage  (by  6.9  per  cent) 
of  unsuccessful  grades  in  the  new  work,  but  they  also  show  a 
higher  percentage  of  A's,  of  B's,  and  of  C's  than  for  the  repeated 
subjects.  There  is  definite  suggestion  here  that  often  the  par- 
ticular subject  of  failure  may  be  more  responsible  and  more  at 
fault  than  the  particular  pupil.  Certainly  uniformity  and  an 
arbitrary  routine  of  tasks  ignore  the  individual  differences  of 
interests  and  abilities.  But  by  their  greater  and  their  repeated 
failures  in  the  same  deficient  subjects  (see  p.  66)  these  pupils 
seem  to  have  reasserted  stoutly  the  facts  ignored.  They  have 
been  asked  to  repeat  and  repeat  again  subjects  which  they  have 
already  indicated  their  unfitness  to  handle  successfully.  This 
pursuance  of  an  unsuccessful  method  is  not  good  procedure  in 
the  business  world.     The  doctor  does  not  employ  such  methods. 

d.   The  Number  and  Results  of  Identical  Repetitions 

It  has  become  apparent  before  this  that  some  pupils  fail  sev- 
eral times  and  in  identical  subjects  because  of  their  unsuccessful 
repetitions  after  each  failure.  Final  success  might  at  times  jus- 
tify multiplied  repetitions,  but  in  such  instances  it  becomes  in- 
creasingly important  that  the  repetition  should  eventually  end  in 
success  after  the  subject  has  been  repeated  two,  three  or 
four  times.  If  such  is  not  the  result,  then  the  method  is  at  best 
a  misdirection  of  energy;  or  still  worse  it  is  an  irreparable  error, 
expensive  to  the  individual  and  the  school  alike,  which  only 
serves  to  accentuate  the  inequalities  and  perversions  of  oppor- 
tunity imposed  by  an  arbitrary  requirement  of  the  same  subjects, 
the  same  methods,  and  the  same  scheme  of  education  for  all 
pupils  alike,  regardless  of  their  capacities  and  interests.  In 
using  the  term  identical  it  is  intended  to  designate  just  one  unit 


66     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

of  the  course,  as  English  I,  or  Latin  II.  The  following  table 
will  disclose  the  facts  as  to  the  success  resulting  from  each  num- 
ber of  such  successive  and  identical  repetitions  per  pupil. 


TABLE  X 

The  Numbers  and  Results  of  Repeated  Repetitions,  for  Identical 

Subjects 
Grades 


no.  of 
repet. 

1  Boys . 
Girls . 

2  Boys. 

Girls. 

3  Boys. 
Girls. 

4  Boys. 
Girls. 

5  Boys. 
Girls. 

6  Boys. 

Girls. 

Tot.    Boys. 
Girls. 


62 

80 

1 
3 


B 

532 

702 

15 
17 

0 
5 


C 

1727 
2329 

106 
154 

26 
19 


D        No 
Grade 


63 
83 


547 

724 


1863 
2510 


880 
1180 

77 
89 

33 

36 

11 
25 

2 
5 

0 
2 

1003 
1337 


216 
342 

3 
2 

0 
3 


Totals  Per  Cent 
Failing 
3417 
4633 


219 

347 


202 
265 

59 
63 

15 
33 

2 
5 

0 
2 

3695 
5001 


32.5 


36.6 


59.0 


75.0 


100.0 


100.0 


Although  a  smaller  number  of  pupils  make  each  higher  num- 
ber of  repetitions,  a  higher  percentage  of  each  successive  group 
meets  with  final  failure  in  the  subject  repeated,  and  the  facts  are 
indicative  of  what  should  be  expected  however  large  the  num- 
bers making  such  multiplied  repetitions.  It  seems  almost  in- 
credible that  pupils  should  anywhere  be  required  or  permitted  to 
make  the  fourth,  fifth,  or  sixth  repetition  of  subjects  so  mani- 
festly certain  of  leading  to  further  disappointment.  It  must  be 
understood,  too,  that  five  and  six  repetitions  means  six  and  seven 
times  over  the  same  school  work.  The  existence  of  such  a 
situation  testifies  to  a  sort  of  deep-seated  faith  in  the  dependence 
of  the  pupil's  educational  salvation  on  the  successful  repetiton 
of  some  particular  school  subject.  It  shows  no  recognition  that 
the  duty  of  the  school  is  to  give  each  pupil  the  type  of  training 
best  suited  to  his  individual  endowments  and  limitations,  and  at 
the  same  time  in  keeping  with  the  needs  of  society.  Such  indis- 
criminate repetition  becomes  a  matter  of  thoughtless  duplicating 


Are  Agencies  Employed  in  Remedying  Failures  Adequafef     67 

and  operates,  first,  to  increase  the  economic,  educational,  and 
human  waste,  where  the  school  is  especially  the  agency  charged 
with  conserving  the  greatest  of  our  national  resources.  Second, 
it  operates  to  fix  more  permanently  the  habit  and  attitude  of 
failing  for  such  pupils,  and  bequeaths  to  society  the  fruit  of  such 
maladjustments,  which  cannot  fail  to  function  frequently  and 
seriously  in  the  production  of  industrial  dissatisfactions  and  mis- 
fits later  in  life.  Such  probabilities  are  merely  in  keeping  with 
the  psychological  fact  that  habits  once  established  are  not  likely 
to  be  easily  lost.  Indiscriminate  repetition  is  an  expensive  way 
of  failing  to  do  the  thing  which  it  assumes  to  do. 

Surely  one  finds  in  the  preceding  pages  rather  slight  grounds 
to  warrant  the  almost  unqualified  faith  in  repetition  such  as  the 
school  practice  exhibits  (Table  X),  or  in  the  importance  of  the 
particular  subjects  so  repeated.  There  may  be  evidence  in  this 
faith  and  practice  of  what  Snedden-  calls  the  "  undue  importance 
attached  to  the  historic  instruments  of  secondary  education  .  .  . 
now  taught  mainly  because  of  the  ease  with  which  they  can  be 
presented  .  .  .  and  which  may  have  had  little  distinguishable 
bearing  on  the  future  achievement  of  those  young  people  so 
gifted  by  nature  as  to  render  it  probable  that  they  should  later 
become  leaders."  But  such  instruments  will  not  lack  direct 
bearing  on  the  productions  of  failures  for  pupils  whose  interests 
and  needs  are  but  remotely  served  by  such  subjects. 

A  recent  ruling  in  the  department  of  secondary  education,^  in 
New  York  City,  denies  high  school  pupils  permission  "  to  repeat 
the  same  grade  and  type  of  work  for  the  third  consecutive  time  " 
after  failing  a  second  time.  And  further  it  is  prescribed  that 
'*  students  who  have  failed  twice  in  any  given  grade  of  a  foreign 
language  should  be  dropped  from  all  classes  in  that  language." 
Our  findings  in  this  study  will  seem  to  verify  the  wisdom  of 
these  rulings.  Another  ruling  that  "  students  who  have  failed 
to  complete  successfully  four  prepared  subjects  should  not  be 
permitted  to  elect  more  than  four  in  the  succeeding  term,"  or  if 
they  "  have  passed  four  subjects  and  failed  in  one,"  should  be 
permitted  to  take  five  only  provisionally,  seems  to  judge  the  in- 
dividual's capacities  pretty  much  in  terms  of  failure.  We  have 
found  that  for  approximately  4,000  repetitions  with  an  extra 
schedule,  however  or  by  whomever  they  may  have  been  deter- 


68     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

mined,  the  percentage  getting  A's  and  B's  was  higher  and  the 
percentage  of  faihng  was  substantially  lower  than  for  approxi- 
mately 4,700  repetitions  with  only  three  or  four  subjects  for 
each  schedule.  It  does  not  appear  that  the  number  of  subjects 
is  uniformly  the  factor  of  prime  importance,  or  that  such  a 
ruling  will  meet  the  essential  difficulty  regarding  failure.  The 
failure  in  any  subject  will  more  often  tend  to  indicate  a  specific 
difficulty  rather  than  any  general  lack  of  *  ability  plus  applica- 
tion '  relative  to  the  number  of  subjects.  The  maladjustment  is 
not  so  often  in  the  size  of  the  load  as  in  the  kind  or  composition 
of  the  load  for  the  particular  individual  concerned.  The  burden 
is  sometimes  mastered  by  repeated  trials.  But  often  the  par- 
ticular adjustment  needed  is  clearly  indicated  by  the  antecedent 
failures. 


2.    Discontinuance  of  Subject  or  Course,  and  the 
Substitution  of  Others 

Earlier  in  this  chapter  appears  the  number  and  percentage  of 
failures  whose  disposition  was  effected  by  discontinuance  or  by 
substitution.  Twenty-four  and  five-tenths  per  cent  of  the  fail- 
ures were  accounted  for  in  this  way.  This  grouping  happens  to 
be  a  rather  complex  one.  Many  of  such  pupils  simply  discon- 
tinue the  course  and  then  drop  out  of  school.  Some  discontinue 
the  subject  but  because  they  have  extra  credits  take  no  substitute 
for  it ;  others  substitute  in  a  general  way  to  secure  the  needed 
credits  but  not  specifically  for  the  subject  dropped.  Only  a  few 
shift  their  credits  to  another  curriculum.  In  some  instances  the 
subject  is  itself  an  extra  one,  and  needs  no  substitute.  For  the 
graduating  pupils  only  about  5  per  cent  of  the  failures  are  dis- 
posed of  by  discontinuing  and  by  substitution  of  subjects.  This 
fact  may  be  due  to  the  greater  economy  in  examinations,  or  to 
the  relatively  inflexible  school  requirements  for  completing  the 
prescribed  work  by  repetition  whether  for  graduation  or  for 
college  entrance.  In  only  one  school  was  there  a  tendency  to 
discontinue  the  subject  failed  in.  So  far  as  failures  represent  a 
definite  maladjustment  between  the  pupil  and  the  school  subject, 
the  substitution  of  other  work  would  seem  to  be  the  most  rational 
solution  of  the  difficulty. 


Are  Agencies  Employed  in  Remedying  Failures  Adequate^    69 

A  consideration  of  the  success  following  a  substitution  of  vo- 
cational or  shop  subjects,  to  replace  the  academic  subjects  of 
failure,  offers  an  especially  promising  theme  for  study.  No 
opportunity  was  offered  in  the  scope  of  this  study  to  include 
that  sort  of  inquiry,  but  its  possibilities  are  recognized  and  ac- 
knowledged herein  as  worthy  of  earnest  attention.  In  only  two 
of  the  eight  schools  was  any  shop-work  offered,  and  only  one  of 
these  could  probably  claim  vocational  rank.  Apart  from  the 
difficulty  in  reference  to  comparability  of  standards,  there  were 
not  more  than  a  negligible  number  of  cases  of  such  substitution, 
due  partly  to  the  relative  recency  in  the  offering  of  any  vocational 
work.  In  this  reference  a  report  comes  from  W.  D.  Lewis  of 
an  actual  experiment"'  in  which  "  fifty  boys  of  the  school  loafer 
type  .  .  .  selected  because  of  their  prolific  record  in  failure — 
as  they  had  proved  absolute  failures  in  the  traditional  course — 
were  placed  in  charge  of  a  good  red-blooded  man  in  a  thoroughly 
equipped  wood  work  shop."  "  The  shop  failed  to  reach  just 
one."  At  the  same  time  the  academic  work  improved.  One 
cannot  be  sure  of  how  much  to  credit  the  type  of  work  and  how 
much  the  red-blooded  man  for  such  results.  But  we  may  feel 
sure  of  further  contributions  of  this  sort  in  due  time. 

3.   Employment  of  School  Examinations 

The  school  examinations  employed  to  dispose  of  the  failures 
are  of  two  types.  The  '  final  '  semester  examination,  employed 
by  certain  schools  and  required  of  pupils  .who  have  failed,  oper- 
ates to  remove  the  previous  failure  for  that  semester  of  the 
subject.  The  success  of  this  plan  is  not  high,  because  of  the 
insufficient  time  available  to  make  any  adequate  reparation  for 
the  failures  already  charged.  Of  the  1.657  examinations  of  this 
kind  to  satisfy  for  failures,  30.7  per  cent  result  in  success.  The 
boys  are  more  successful  than  the  girls  by  4.5  per  cent.  This 
particular  procedure  is  not  employed  by  more  than  two  of  the 
eight  schools.  The  other  form  of  school  examination  employed 
for  disposing  of  failures  is  the  special  examination,  usually  fol- 
lowing some  definite  preparation,  and  given  at  the  discretion  of 
the  teacher  or  department  head.  Its  employment  seems  also  to 
be  limited  pretty  much  to  two  of  the  schools,  because  for  most 


70     School  Records  of  Pupils  Foiling  in  High  School  Subjects 

of  the  subjects  the  Regents'  examinations  tend  to  displace  it  in 
the  schools  of  the  New  York  State  and  City  systems.  As  only 
the  successes  were  sure  of  being  recorded  in  these  tests  we  do 
not  know  the  percentage  of  success  attributable  to  this  plan  of 
removing  failures.  It  probably  deserves  to  be  credited  with  a 
fairly  high  degree  of  success,  for  relatively  few  pupils  (less  than 
200)  utilize  it,  and  then  frequently  after  some  extra  preparation 
or  study — such  as  summer  school  courses  or  tutoring.  These 
two  forms  of  school  examinations  jointly  yield  37.5  per  cent  of 
successes  on  the  number  attempted,  so  far  as  such  are  recorded. 

4.  The  Service  Rendered  by  the  Regents'  Examinations  in 
New  York  State 

Whatever  may  be  the  merits  or  demerits  of  the  Regents'  ex- 
amination system  in  general  for  academic  school  subjects,  these 
tests  certainly  perform  a  saving  function  for  the  failing  pupils, 
by  promptly  rectifying  so  many  of  their  school  failures  and  thus 
rescuing  them  from  the  burden  of  expensive  repetition.  A  pupil's 
success  in  the  Regents'  examination  has  the  immediate  effect  of 
satisfying  the  school  failure  charged  to  him.  At  the  same  time, 
it  is  possible,  as  is  sometimes  asserted,  that  the  anticipation  of 
these  tests  inclines  some  teachers  to  a  more  gratuitous  distribution 
of  failing  marks  as  a  spur  to  their  pupils  to  brace  up  and  perform 
well  in  reference  to  the  Regents'  questions.  However,  there  is 
no  trace  of  that  policy  found  so  far  as  the  schools  included  in 
this  study  are  concerned.  For  the  three  New  Jersey  schools 
considered  jointly  have  a  higher  percentage  of  failing  pupils,  and 
a  slightly  higher  average  in  the  number  of  failures  for  each  fail- 
ing pupil  than  have  the  three  New  York  State  schools. 

But  it  is  more  probable  that  the  attitude  referred  to  operates 
to  exclude  the  failing  pupils  from  being  freely  permitted  to  enter 
the  Regents'  tests  in  the  failing  subjects,  and  thus  to  restrain 
them  from  what  threatens  to  lower  the  school  percentage  of  suc- 
cessful papers,  except  that  in  New  York  City  such  discrimina- 
tion is  prohibited.^  On  the  percentages  of  success  for  these  ex- 
amination results  teachers  and  even  schools  are  wont  to  be  popu- 
larly judged.  Annual  school  reports  may  feature  the  passing 
percentage  for  the  school  in  Regents'  examinations,  with  a  spirit 


Are  Agencies  Employed  in  Remedying  Failures  Adequate f     71 

of  pride  or  rivalry,  but  with  no  word  of  what  that  percentage 
costs  as  real  cost  must  be  reckoned.  It  is  interesting  to  note  in 
this  connection  that  the  percentage  of  unsuccessful  repetitions 
for  the  three  New  Jersey  schools  is  13.7  per  cent  lower  than  for 
the  three  New  York  schools.  In  addition  to  this,  for  the  latter 
schools  22  per  cent  more  of  the  subject  failures  are  repeated  than 
for  the  former  ones  mentioned.  It  is  important  also  to  bear  in 
mind  that  the  success  percentage  for  the  Regents'  tests  is  com- 
puted on  the  number  admitted  to  the  examinations — not  on  the 
number  instructed  in  the  subject.  The  regulations  are  flexible 
and  admit  of  considerable  latitude  in  matters  of  classification  and 
interpretation.  Accordingly,  if  it  happens  anywhere  in  the  state 
that  those  who  are  the  less  promising  candidates,  in  the  teacher's 
judgment,  are  debarred  from  attempting  Regents'  examinations 
by  failing  marks,  by  demotion  and  exclusion  from  their  class,  or 
by  other  means,  the  school's  percentage  of  pupils  passing  may 
be  kept  high  as  a  result,  but  the  injustice  worked  upon  the  pupil 
in  such  manner  is  vicious  and  reprehensible.  Yet  the  whole  in- 
tolerableness  of  the  practice  will  center  in  the  rule  for  exclusion 
of  pupils  from  these  examinations  because  of  school  failure. 
No  one  can  predict  with  any  safe  degree  of  certainty  that  the 
outcome  of  any  individual's  efforts  will  be  a  failure  in  the  Re- 
gents' tests,  even  though  he  has  failed  in  a  school  subject.  If 
failure  should  happen  to  result,  it  is  chiefly  the  school  pride  that 
suffers;  if  the  pupil  is  denied  a  free  trial,  he  may  suffer  an  injus- 
tice to  aid  the  pretension  of  the  school.  Our  school  sanctions  are 
not  characterized  by  such  acumen  or  infallibility  as  to  warrant 
our  refusing  to  give  a  pupil  the  benefit  of  the  doubt.  He  is  entitled 
to  his  chance  to  win  success  in  these  examinations  if  he  is  able, 
and  it  appears  that  only  results  in  the  Regents'  tests  can  be  truly 
trusted  to  tell  us  that  he  is  or  is  not  able  to  pass  them. 

The  facts  depicted  here  may  lead  to  the  belief  that  the  re- 
corded success  in  Regents'  examinations  may  sometimes  be  arti- 
ficially high,  due  to  the  subtle  influences  at  work  to  make  it  so. 
In  New  York  City  absence  is  the  sole  condition  for  debarring 
any  pupil,  since  he  must  have  pursued  a  subject  the  prescribed 
time.  Such  a  ruling  is  highly  commendable,  and  it  should  not 
in  fairness  to  the  pupil  be  otherwise  anywhere  in  the  state.  The 
following  distribution  discloses  that  72.8  per  cent  of  the  3,085 


72     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

failing  pupils  who  were  recorded  as  taking  the  Regents'  exami- 
nations were  successful,  and  that  78  per  cent  of  those  succeeding 
passed  in  the  same  semester  in  which  the  school  failure  occurred. 

Success  of  the  Failing  Pupils  in  the  Regents'  Examinations 

Pass  the  Same  Pass  a  Later  Fail  First,  Only 

Semester  Semester  then  Pass  Fail 

1333  Boys 809  143                     38  343 

1752  Girls 946  193                    117  496 

Per  Cent  of  Total 72.8  27.2 

The  divisions  of  the  above  distribution  are  distinct,  with  no 
overlapping  or  double  counting.  Of  the  pupils  who  pass  these 
examinations  in  a  later  semester  than  that  in  which  the  failure 
occurs,  a  major  part  belong  to  the  two  schools  which  restrict 
their  pupils  mainly  to  a  repetition  of  the  subject  after  failing 
before  they  attempt  the  Regents'  tests.  Otherwise  many  of 
them  would  pass  the  Regents'  examinations  at  once,  as  in  the 
other  schools,  and  would  not  need  to  repeat  the  subject.  It  was 
pointed  out  in  the  initial  part  of  this  chapter  that  3.2  per  cent 
of  the  instances  of  failure  were  followed  by  both  repetition  and 
examination.  In  one  of  the  two  schools  referred  to  90.8  per 
cent  of  the  pupils  failing  and  later  taking  Regents'  examinations 
repeat  the  subject  first.  That  most  of  such  repetition  is  almost 
entirely  needless  is  suggested  by  the  fact  that  only  2.1  per  cent 
more  of  their  pupils  pass,  of  the  ones  attempting,  than  of  the 
total  number  reported  above,  and  that  too  in  spite  of  the  loss  of 
pupils'  time  and  public  money  by  such  repetition.  It  may  be, 
and  doubtless  is,  true  that  an  occasional  omission  occurs  in  re- 
cording the  results  after  such  tests  have  been  taken,  but,  since 
it  is  the  avowed  policy  of  each  school  to  have  complete  records 
for  their  own  constant  reference  (excepting  that  the  practice  of 
the  smallest  of  the  five  units  was  not  to  record  the  Regents' 
failures,  and  for  this  school  they  had  to  be  estimated),  the  fail- 
ing results  would  not  be  expected  to  be  omitted  more  often  than 
the  successes,  so  that  only  the  totals  would  be  perceptibly  afifected 
by  such  errors. 

One  may  rightly  be  permitted  to  speculate  a  bit  here  as  to  the 
most  probable  reaction  of  the  pupil  in  regard  to  his  respect  for 
the  school  standards  and  for  the  judgment  and  opinion  of  his 


Arc  Agencies  Employed  in  Remedying  Failures  Adequate?     72) 

teacher,  when  he  so  readily  and  repeatedly  passes  the  official 
state  tests  almost  immediately  after  his  school  has  classed  his 
work  as  of  failing  quality.  Perhaps  it  becomes  easier  for  him 
to  feel  that  failure  is  not  a  serious  matter  but  an  almost  neces- 
sary incident  that  accompanies  the  expectations  of  the  usual 
school  course,  just  as  gout  is  sometimes  regarded  as  a  mere  con- 
tingency of  ease  and  plenty.  If  such  be  true,  and  the  evidence 
establishes  a  strong  probability  that  it  is,  then  it  is  not  a  helpful 
attitude  to  develop  in  the  pupil  nor  one  of  benefit  to  the  school 
and  to  society. 

5.   Continuation  of  Subject  Without  Repetition 

A  limited  number  of  records  were  available  in  one  school  for 
the  pupils  who  failed  in  the  first  semester  of  a  subject,  and  who 
were  permitted  to  continue  the  subject  conditionally  a  second 
semester  without  first  repeating  it.  Not  all  pupils  were  given 
this  privilege,  and  the  conditions  of  selection  were  not  very  defi- 
nite beyond  a  sort  of  general  confidence  and  promise  relative  to 
the  pupil.  The  after-school  conference  was  the  only  specific 
means  provided  for  aiding  such  pupils.  But  52  per  cent  of  such 
subjects  were  passed  in  this  manner,  and  the  subsequent  passing 
compensated  for  the  previous  failure  as  to  school  credit. 

Grades  For  Failing  Pupils  Who  Continue  the   Subject  Without 

Repetition 

A 

259  Boys 

249  Girls 

Per  Cent  of  Total 52  48 

A  difference  of  judgments  may  prevail  as  to  the  significance 
of  these  facts.  Although  the  passing  grades  secured  are  not 
high,  52  per  cent  have  thus  been  relieved  from  the  subject  repeti- 
tion, which  on.  the  average  results  in  2)2).Z  per  cent  of  failures, 
as  has  been  noted  in  section  1  of  this  chapter. 

A  much  more  ingenious  device  for  enabling  at  least  some 
pupils  to  escape  the  repetition  and  yet  to  continue  the  subject 
was  discovered  in  one  school,  in  which  it  had  been  employed. 
Briefly  stated,  the  scheme  involved  a  nominal  passing  grade  of 


B 

C 

D 

7 

133 

119 

3 

119 

125 

74     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

70  per  cent,  but  a  passing  average  of  75  per  cent;  and  so  long 
as  the  average  was  attained,  the  grade  in  one  or  two  of  the 
subjects  might  be  permitted  to  drop  as  low  as  60  per  cent.  Then 
in  the  event  of  a  lower  average  than  75  per  cent,  it  might  be 
raised  by  a  new  test  in  the  favorite  or  easiest  subject,  rather 
than  in  the  low  subject.  By  this  scheme  the  grades  could  be  so 
juggled  as  to  escape  repetition  or  other  direct  form  of  reparation 
in  spite  of  repeated  failures,  unless  perchance  the  grades  fell 
below  60  per  cent.  By  a  change  of  administration  in  the  school 
this  whole  scheme  has  been  superseded.  But  it  had  been  utilized 
to  the  extent  that  the  records  for  this  school  showed  practically 
no  repetitions  for  the  failing  pupils. 

A  Summary  of  Chapter  V 

Among  the  school  agencies  for  disposing  of  the  failures,  repe- 
tition of  the  subject  is  the  most  extensively  employed. 

Thirty-three  and  three-tenths  per  cent  of  the  repeated  grades 
are  repeated  failures. 

Few  of  the  repeaters  take  reduced  schedules. 

The  repeaters  with  an  extra  schedule  are  more  successful  in 
each  of  the  passing  grades,  and  have  11.4  per  cent  less  failures 
than  repeaters  with  a  normal  or  reduced  schedule. 

In  the  later  subjects  of  the  same  kind,  after  failure  and  repe- 
tition, the  unsuccessful  grades  are  2.2  per  cent  higher  than  for  a 
similar  situation  without  any  repetition. 

.,  The  grades  in  new  work  for  repeaters  are  markedly  superior 
to  those  in  the  repeated  subjects,  for  the  same  semester. 

As  the  number  of  identical  repetitions  are  increased  (as  high 
as  six),  the  percentage  of  final  failure  rapidly  rises. 

The  emphasis  placed  on  repetition  is  excessive,  and  the  faith 
displayed  in  it  by  school  practice  is  unwarranted  by  the  facts. 

Relatively  few  of  the  failing  pupils  who  continue  in  school 
discontinue  the  subject  or  substitute  another  after  failure. 

School  examinations  are  employed  for  10.3  per  cent  of  the 
failures,  with  37.5  per  cent  of  success  on  the  attempts. 

The  Regents'  examinations  are  employed  for  17.2  per  cent  of 
the  failures,  of  which  72.8  per  cent  succeed  in  passing,  and  in 
most  cases  immediately  after  the  school  failure. 


Arc  Agencies  Employed  in  Remedying  Failures  Adequate?    75 

Of  those  who  continue  the  subject  of  failure  without  any  repe- 
tition 52  per  cent  get  passing  grades. 

No  form  of  school  compensation  can  be  considered  as  adequate 
w^hich  does  not  adapt  the  treatment  to  the  kind  and  cause  of  the 
malady,  as  manifested  by  the  failure  symptoms. 

References  : 

1.  Briggs,  T.  H.    Report  on  Secondary  Education,  U.  S.  Comm.  of  Educ. 

Report,  1914. 

2.  Snedden,  D.     In  Johnson's  Modern  High  School.     II,  24,  26. 

3.  Official  Bulletin  on  Promotion  and   Students'  Programs,    1917,   from 

Assoc.  Supt.  in  Charge  of  Secondary  Schools,  for  N.  Y.  City. 

4.  Lewis,  W.  D.     Democracy's  High  School,  p.  45. 

5.  Ruling  of  Board  of  Supt's.,  New  York  City,  June,  1917. 


CHAPTER  VI 

DO  THE  FAILURES  REPRESENT  A  LACK  OF  CAPABIL- 
ITY OR  OF  FITNESS  FOR  HIGH  SCHOOL  WORK 
ON  THE  PART  OF  THOSE  PUPILS? 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  some  of  the  pupils  do  not  fail  in 
any  part  of  their  school  work,  there  is  a  certain  popular  pre- 
sumption that  failure  must  be  significant  of  pupil  inferiority 
when  it  occurs.  That  connotation  will  necessarily  be  correct 
if  we  are  to  judge  the  individual  entirely  by  that  part  of 
his  work  in  which  he  fails,  and  to  assume  that  the  failing 
mark  is  a  fair  indication  of  both  achievement  and  ability. 
Although  the  pupil  is  only  one  of  the  contributing  factors  in 
the  failure,  nevertheless  it  happens  that  cherished  opportun- 
ity, prizes,  praise,  honors,  employment,  and  even  social  recog- 
nition are  frequently  proffered  or  withheld  according  to  his  marks 
in  school.  Still  further,  the  pupil  who  accumulates  failures  may 
soon  cease  to  be  aggressively  alive  and  active ;  he  is  in  danger  of 
acquiring  a  conforming  attitude  of  tolerance  toward  the  experi- 
ence of  being  unsuccessful.  Therefore  it  is  particularly  moment- 
ous to  the  pupil,  should  the  school  record  ascribed  to  him  prove 
frequently  to  be  incongruous  with  his  potential  powers.  It  has 
already  been  pointed  out  in  these  pages  that  the  failures  frequently 
tend  to  designate  specific  difficulties  rather  than  what  is  actually 
the  negative  of  *  ability  plus  application.'  This  does  not  at  all  deny 
that  in  some  instances  there  appears  to  be  the  ability  minus  the 
application,  and  that  in  other  cases  the  pupils  are  simple  unfitted 
for  the  work  required  of  them. 

1.     Some  Are  Evidently  Misfits 

There  is  a  strong  presumption  that  many  of  the  485  pupils  who 
failed  in  50  per  cent  of  their  school  work  and  dropped  out  (re- 
ported in  Chapter  IV)  represent  misfits  for  at  least  the  kind  of 

76 


Do  Failures  Represent  Lack  of  Capability  f  77 

school  subjects  offered  or  required.  One  cannot  say  that  even 
hopeless  failing  in  any  particular  subject  is  a  safe  criterion  of 
general  inability,  or  that  failure  in  abstract  sort  of  mental  work 
would  be  a  sure  prophecy  of  failure  in  more  concrete  hand  work. 
It  is  altogether  probable  that  some  of  the  individuals  in  the  above 
number  were  not  endowed  to  profit  by  an  academic  high  school 
course,  and  that  others  were  the  restless  ones  at  a  restless  age, 
who  just  would  not  fit  in,  whatever  their  abilities.  But  even  of 
these  pupils  a  considerable  number  display  sufficient  resourceful- 
ness to  satisfy  many  of  their  failures  and  to  persist  in  school  two, 
three,  or  four  years.  There  are  perhaps  at  least  a  few  others  who, 
without  failing,  drop  out  early,  prompted  by  the  conviction  of  their 
own  unfitness  to  succeed  in  the  high  school.  Yet  collectively  this 
group  is  by  no  means  a  large  one.  This  conclusion  is  in  har- 
mony with  the  judgment  of  former  Superintendent  Maxwell,  of 
New  York  City,^  who  stated  that  "the  number  of  children  leav- 
ing school  because  they  have  not  the  native  ability  to  cope  with 
high  school  studies,  is,  in  my  judgment,  small."  Likewise  Van 
Denburg-  reached  the  conclusion  that  "at  least  75  per  cent  of 
the  pupils  who  enter  (high  school)  have  the  brains,  the  native 
ability  to  graduate,  if  they  chose  to  apply  themselves."  With 
many  who  fail  not  even  is  the  application  lacking,  as  the  facts  of 
section  2  will  seem  to  prove. 

2.     Most  of  the  Failing  Pupils  Lack  Neither 
Ability  or  Earnestness 

When  we  take  into  account  that  by  the  processes  of  selection 
and  elimination  only  thirty  to  forty  per  cent  of  the  pupils  who 
enter  the  elementary  school  ever  reach  high  school,^  it  is  readily 
admitted  that  the  high  school  population  is  a  selected  group,  of 
approximately  1  in  3.  Then  of  this  number  we  again  select  less 
than  1  in  3  to  graduate.  This  gives  a  1  in  9  selection,  let  us  say, 
of  the  elementary  school  entrants.  For  relatively  few  general 
purposes  in  life  may  we  expect  to  find  so  high  a  degree  of  selec- 
tion. Yet  in  this  1  in  9  group  (who  graduate)  the  percent- 
age of  the  failing  pupils  is  as  high  as  that  of  the  non-failing 
ones,  and  the  percentage  of  graduates  does  not  drop  even  as 
the  number  of  failures  rise.      So  far  as  ability  is  required  to 


78     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

meet  the  conditions  of  graduation  they  are  manifestly  provided 
with  it.  Following  this  comparison  still  further,  the  failing 
pupils  who  do  not  graduate  have  an  average  number  of  failures 
that  is  only  .6  higher  than  for  the  failing  graduates  (4.9-4.3)  ; 
but  barring  those  non-graduates  considered  in  section  1  of  this 
chapter,  the  average  is  practically  the  same  as  for  the  failing 
graduates.  Moreover,  the  failing  non-graduates  continue  in 
school,  even  in  the  face  of  failure,  much  longer  than  do  the  non- 
failing  non-graduates.  That  gives  evidence  of  the  same  quality 
to  which  the  manager  of  a  New  York  business  firm  paid  tribute 
when  he  said  that  he  preferred  to  employ  a  high  school  graduate 
for  the  simple  reason  that  the  graduate  had  learned,  by  staying 
to  graduate,  how  to  *  stick  to '  a  task. 

The  success  of  the  failing  pupils  in  passing  the  Regents^ 
examinations  does  not  give  endorsement  tO'  the  suggestion  that 
they  are  in  any  true  sense  weaklings.  That  they  succeed  here 
almost  concurrently  with  the  failure  in  the  school  testifies  that 
'  they  can  if  they  will,'  or  conversely,  as  regards  the  school  sub- 
ject, that  'they  can  but  they  won't.'  Of  course  it  is  possible  that 
differences  in  the  type  of  examinations  or  in  the  standards  of 
judgment  as  employed  by  the  school  and  the  Regents  may  be  a 
factor  in  the  difference  of  results  secured.  The  great  difficulty 
then  seems  to  resolve  itself  into  a  technical  problem  of  more  suc- 
cessfully enlisting  the  energy  and  ability  which  they  so  irrefutably 
do  possess  in  order  to  secure  better  school  results,  but  perhaps 
in  work  that  is  better  adapted  to  them.  Again,  the  success  with 
which  these  pupils  carry  a  schedule  of  five  or  six  subjects,  besides 
other  work  not  recognized  in  the  treatment  of  this  study,  and 
retrieve  themselves  in  the  unattractive  subjects  of  failure  pleads 
for  a  recognition  of  their  ability  and  enterprise.  Their  difficulty 
is  without  doubt  frequently  more  physiological  than  psycholog- 
ical, except  as  they  are  the  victims  of  a  false  psychology,  that 
either  disregards  or  misapplies  the  principles  which  Thorndike 
terms  the  law  of  readiness*  to  respond  and  the  law  of  effect, 
and  consequently  depend  largely  on  the  one  law  of  exercise  of 
the  function  to  secure  the  desired  results. 

Some  additional  evidence  that  the  failing  pupils  can  and  do 
succeed  in  most  of  their  subjects  is  provided  by  their  earlier  and 
later  records,  as  disclosed  by  the  total  grades  received  for  the 


Do  Failures  Represent  Lack  of  Capability?  79 

semester  first  preceding  and  the  one  next  following  that  in  which 
the  failure  occurs.  There  were  of  course  no  preceding  grades 
for  the  failures  that  occur  in  the  first  semester,  and  none  succeed- 
ing those  that  occur  in  the  last  semester  spent  in  school.  It  is 
quite  apparent  from  the  following  distribution  of  grades  that 
these  pupils  are  far  from  helpless  in  regard  to  the  ability  required 
to  do  school  work  in  general. 


Grades  of  the  Failing  Pupils  in  the  Semester  Next  Preceding  the 

Failures 

Total                                                                A  B            C            D 

13,857  Boys 315  2883        6668        3991 

17,264  Girls 245  2868        9509        4642 

Per  Cent  of  Total 1.8  18.5        52.0        27.7 

Grades  of  the  Failing  Pupils  in  the  Semester  Next  Succeeding  the 

Failures 

Total                                                                 A  B            C            D 

14,724  Boys 319  2772        7406        4227 

16,942  Girls 281  2788        9114        4759 

Per  Cent  of  Total 1.9  17.7        52.1         28.3 


More  than  20  per  cent  of  the  grades  in  the  former  and  nearly 
20  per  cent  of  the  grades  in  the  latter  distribution  are  A's  or  B's, 
52  per  cent  more  in  each  case  are  given  a  low^er  passing  grade, 
while  approximately  28  per  cent  in  each  distribution  have  failing 
grades.  Though  some  tendency  toward  a  continuity  of  failures 
is  apparent,  there  is  also  evident  a  pronounced  tendency  in  the 
main  for  pupils  to  succeed.  That  these  same  pupils  could  do 
better  is  not  open  to  doubt.  Teachers  in  two  of  the  larger  schools 
asserted  that  with  many  pupils  a  kind  of  complacency  existed 
to  feel  satisfied  with  a  C,  and  to  consider  greater  eft'ort  for  the 
sake  of  higher  passing  marks  as  a  waste  of  time.  Such  pupils 
openly  advocate  a  greater  number  of  subjects  with  at  least 
a  minimum  passing  mark  in  each,  in  preference  to  fewer  subjects 
and  the  higher  grades,  which  they  claim  count  no  more  in 
essential  credit  than  a  lower  passing  grade.  That  attitude  may 
account  for  some  of  the  low  marks  as  well  as  for  some  of  the 
failures  shown  above,  even  though  the  pupils  may  possess  an 
abundance  of  mental  ability. 

Still  another  element,  apart  from  the  real  ability  of  the  pupils, 


80     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

which  is  contributory  to  school  failures  is  found  in  punitive  mark- 
ing or  in  the  giving  of  a  failing  grade  for  disciplinary  effect.  It 
is  probably  a  relatively  small  element,  but  it  is  difficult  to  estab- 
lish any  certain  estimate  of  its  amount.  Numerous  teachers  are 
ready  to  assert  its  reality  in  practice.  Two  cases  came  directly 
to  the  author's  personal  attention  by  mere  chance  — one,  by  the 
frank  statement  of  a  teacher  who  had  used  this  weapon ;  another, 
by  the  ready  advice  of  an  older  to  a  younger  teacher,  in  the  midst 
of  recording  marks,  to  fail  a  boy  "  because  he  was  too  fresh." 
The  advice  was  followed.  Such  a  practice,  however  prevalent, 
is  intolerable  and  indefensible.  If  the  school  failure  is  to  be 
administered  as  a  retaliation  or  convenience  by  the  teacher,  how 
is  the  moral  or  educational  welfare  of  the  pupil  to  be  served 
thereby?  It  is  certain  to  be  more  efficacious  for  vengeance  than 
for  purposes  of  reforming  the  individual  if  employed  in  this  way. 
The  Regents'  rules  take  recognition  of  this  inclination  toward  a 
perversion  of  the  function  of  examination  by  forbidding  any 
exclusion  from  Regents'  examinations  as  a  means  of  discipline. 
Many  teachers  cultivate  a  finesse  for  discerning  weaknesses  and 
faults,  without  perceiving  the  immeasurable  advantage  of  being 
able  to  see  the  pupils'  excellences.  In  one  school  there  was  em- 
ployed a  plan  by  which  a  percentage  discount  was  charged  for 
absence,  and  in  some  instances  it  reduced  a  passing  mark  to  a 
failing  mark.  This  comes  close  to  the  assignment  of  marks  of 
failure  for  penalizing  purposes,  which  is  unjustified  and  vicious. 

It  is  certain  that  some  of  the  pupils  are  failures  only  in  the 
narrow  academic  sense.  Information  in  reference  to  a  few  such 
cases  was  volunteered  by  principals,  without  any  effort  being 
made  to  trace  such  pupils  in  general.  One  of  the  pupils  in  this 
study  who  had  graduated  after  failing  23  times,  was  able  to  enter 
a  reputable  college,  and  had  reached  the  junior  year  at  the  time 
of  this  study.  Two  others  with  a  record  of  more  than  20  failures 
each  had  made  a  decided  success  in  business — one  as  an  auto- 
mobile salesman  and  manager,  the  other  in  a  telegraph  office. 
It  is  not  unrecognized  that  the  school  has  many  notable  failures 
to  indicate  how  even  the  fittest  sometimes  do  not  survive  the 
school  routine.  Among  such  cases  were  Darwin,  Beecher, 
Seward,  Pasteur,  Linnaeus,  Webster,  Edison,  and  George  Eliot, 
who  were  classed  by  their  schools  as  stupid  or  incompetent.^     In 


Do  Failures  Rcl^rcscnt  Lack  of  Capability?  81 

reference  to  the  pupil's  responsibility  for  the  failures,  Thorndike 
remarks"  that  "  something  in  the  mental  or  social  and  economic 
status  of  the  pupil  who  enters  high  school,  or  in  the  particular 
kind  of  education  given  in  the  United  States,  is  at  fault.  The 
fact  that  the  elimination  is  so  great  in  the  first  year  of  the  high 
school  gives  evidence  that  a  large  share  of  the  fault  lies  with  the 
kind  of  education  given  in  the  United  States."  Some  of  the  facts 
for  those  are  not  eliminated  so  early  are  still  more  definitely 
indicative  that  something  is  wrong  with  the  kind  of  education 
given,  as  the  facts  of  the  following  section  seem  to  point  out. 

• 
3.  The   School   Emphasis   and  the   School   Failures   Are 
Both  Culminative  in  Particular  School  Subjects 

As  soon  as  we  find  any  subject  forced  upon  all  pupils  alike  as 
a  school  requirement  we  may  be  quite  sure  that  it  will  not  meet 
the  demands  of  the  individual  aptitudes  and  capacities  of  some 
portion  of  those  pupils.  As  a  result  an  accumulation  of  failures 
will  tend  to  mark  out  such  a  uniformly  required  subject,  whether 
it  be  mathematics,  science  or  Latin.  It  was  pointed  out  in  section 
4  of  Chapter  II  that  Latin  and  mathematics,  although  admittedly 
in  charge  of  teachers  ranking  with  the  best,  have  both  a  high 
percentage  of  the  total  failures  and  the  highest  percentage  of 
failures  reckoned  on  the  number  taking  the  subject.  In  both 
regards  there  is  a  heaping  up  of  failures  for  those  two  subjects, 
but  furthermore  there  is  an  arbitrary  emphasis  culminating  in 
these  two  subjects  beyond  any  others  excepting  that  English  is 
a  very  generally  required  subject.  In  reference  to  these  two  re- 
quired subjects  the  pupils  who  graduate  are  not  more  successful 
than  those  who  do  not.  When  the  emphasis  is  on  the  teaching  of 
the  subject  rather  than  on  the  teaching  of  the  pupil  there  is  no 
incongruity  in  making  the  subject  a  requirement  for  all,  but  both 
are  incongruous  with  what  psychology  has  more  lately  recognized 
and  pointed  out  as  to  the  wide  range  of  individual  dift'erences.  A 
similar  situation  is  evidenced  by  the  percentage  of  failure  in 
science  as  reported  for  the  St.  Louis  high  school  in  Chapter  II. 
A  year  of  physics  had  been  made  compulsory  for  all,  and  taught 
in  the  second  year.'  Its  percentage  of  failures  accordingly 
mounts  to  the  highest  place.     Mr.  Meredith,  who  conducted  that 


82     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

portion  of  the  survey,  rightly  regards  the  policy  as  a  mistake,  and 
recommends  that  the  needs  of  individual  pupils  be  considered. 

It  is  indeed  striking  how  failures  of  the  pupils  are  grouped 
under  particular  subjects  of  difficulty,  and  how  the  pupils  fail 
again  and  again  in  the  same  general  subject.  No  educational 
expert  would  seem  to  be  needed  to  diagnose  a  goodly  number  of 
these  chronic  cases  of  failing  and  to  detect  a  productive  source 
of  the  whole  trouble  if  only  the  following  distribution  were  pre- 
sented to  him. 

Distribution  of  Pupils  According  to  the  Number  of  Times  They  Have 
Failed  in  the  Same  Subject 

No.  of  Times  1  2        3        4      5      6    7    8    9     10    11     12    14 

Boys 2852     1416    425     196     73     25     2    4     1       1       1       0       1 

Girls 2812    1722    501    250    98    31     7    8    3      1      0      3      0 

By  '  same  subjects  '  the  same  general  divisions  are  designated, 
as  English,  Latin,  mathematics.  We  may  be  led  to  note  first 
that  a  major  portion  of  the  above  distribution  of  pupils  belongs 
to  those  who  fail  but  once  in  the  same  subject;  but  then  we 
note  that  by  far  the  greater  number  of  failures  comprised  by  that 
distribution  belong  to  those  who  fail  two  or  more  times  in  the 
same  subject.  To  state  that  fact  more  specifically,  68.5  per  cent 
of  the  total  17,960  failures  involved  in  this  study  are  made  by 
two  or  more  failures  in  the  same  subject,  while  31.5  per  cent 
of  the  failures  belong  to  a  more  promiscuous  and  varied  collec- 
tion of  failures,  of  not  more  than  one  in  any  subject.  It  will  be 
noted  here  that  some  subjects  do  not  have  a  greater  continuity 
than  one  year  or  even  one  semester  on  the  school  program.  Such 
subjects  provide  the  least  possibility  of  successive  failures  in  the 
same  field.  A  further  analysis  shows  that  the  failures  incurred 
by  three  or  more  instances  occurring  in  the  same  subject  form 
33.6  per  cent  of  the  entire  number;  and  that  18  per  cent  of  the 
total  is  comprised  of  four  or  more  instances  of  failure  in  the 
same  subject.  There  is  small  probability  that  such  a  multiplica- 
tion of  failures  by  subjects  will  characterize  the  subjects  which 
are  least  productive  of  failures  in  general,  and  such  is  not  the 
case  in  fact.  Latin  and  mathematics  are  again  the  chief  con- 
tributors, and  this  would  seem  to  be  a  fact  also  for  those  schools 
quoted  from  outside  of  this  study,  for  purposes  of  comparison 
in  Chapter  II. 


Do  Failures  Represent  Lack  of  Capability?  83 

The  above  distribution  speaks  with  graphic  eloquence  of  how 
the  school  tends  to  focus  emphasis  on  the  subject  prescribed  and 
then  to  demand  that  the  pupil  be  fitted  or  become  fitted  to  the 
courses  offered.  Such  heaping  up  of  failures  will  more  likely 
mark  those  subjects  which  seem  to  the  pupil  to  be  furthest  from 
meeting  his  needs  and  appealing  to  his  interests. 

In  two  of  the  schools  studied,  an  X,  Y,  and  Z  division  was 
formed  in  certain  difficult  subjects  for  the  failing  pupils,  by 
which  they  take  three  semesters  to  complete  two  semesters  of 
work.  This  plan,  as  judged  by  results,  is  obviously  insufficient 
for  such  pupils  and  tends  to  prove  further  that  the  kind  of  work 
is  more  at  fault  in  the  matter  of  failing  than  is  the  amount. 
Frequently  a  pupil  who  fails  in  the  A  semester  (first)  will  also 
fail  in  the  X  division  of  that  subject  as  he  repeats  it,  while  at 
the  same  time  his  work  is  perhaps  not  inferior  in  the  other  sub- 
jects. The  data  for  these  special  divisions  were  not  kept  distinct 
in  transcribing  the  records,  so  that  it  is  not  possible  to  offer  the 
tabulated  facts  here.  There  are  numerous  recognized  illustra- 
tions of  how  some  pupils  find  some  particular  subject  as  history, 
mathematics,  or  language  distinctively  difficult  for  them. 

4.  An   Indictment  Against  the   Subject-Matter  and  the 
Teaching  Ends,  as  Factors  in  Producing  Failures 

The  evidence  already  disclosed  to  the  effect  that  the  high  school 
entrants  are  highly  selected,  that  few  of  the  failing  pupils  lack 
sufficient  ability  for  the  work,  that  they  have  manifested  their 
ability  and  energy  in  diverse  ways,  and  that  particular  subjects 
are  unduly  emphasized  and  by  the  uniformity  of  their  require- 
ment cause  much  maladjustment,  largely  contributing  to  the 
harvest  of  failures,  seems  to  warrant  an  indictment  against  both 
the  subject-matter  and  the  teaching  ends  for  factoring  so  promi- 
nently in  the  production  of  failures.  There  is  clearly  an  adminis- 
trative and  curriculum  problem  involved  here  in  the  sense  that  not 
a  few  of  the  failures  seem  to  represent  the  cost  at  which  the  ma- 
chinery operates.  This  is  in  no  sense  intended  as  a  challenge  to  any 
subject  to  defend  its  place  in  the  high  school  curriculum,  but  it  is 
meant  to  challenge  the  policy  of  the  indiscriminate  requirement  of 
any  subject  for  all  pupils,  allowing  only  that  English  of  some  kind 


84     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

will  usually  be  a  required  subject  for  the  great  majority  of  the 
pupils.  It  is  simply  demanded  that  Latin  and  mathematics  shall 
stand  on  their  own  merits,  and  that  the  same  shall  apply  to  history 
and  science  or  other  subjects  of  the  curriculum.  So  far  as  they 
are  taught  each  should  be  taught  as  earnestly  and  as  efficiently 
as  possible ;  but  it  should  not  be  asked  that  any  teacher  take  the 
responsibility  for  the  unwilHng  and  unfitted  members  of  a  class 
who  are  forced  into  the  subject  by  an  arbitrary  ruling  which 
regards  neither  the  motive,  the  interest  or  the  fitness  of  the  indi- 
vidual. 

This  indictment  extends  likewise  to  the  teaching  method  or 
purpose  which  focalizes  the  teachers'  attention  and  energy  chiefly 
on  the  subject.  Certain  basic  assumptions,  now  pretty  much  dis- 
credited, have  led  to  the  avowed  teaching  of  the  subject  for  its 
own  sake,  and  often  without  much  regard  to  any  definite  social 
utility  served  by  it.  This  charge  seems  to  find  an  instance  in  the 
handling  of  the  subject  of  English  so  that  16.5  per  cent  of  all  the 
failures  are  contributed  by  it,  without  giving  even  the  graduate 
a  mastery  of  direct,  forceful  speech,  as  is  so  generally  testified. 
Strangely  enough,  except  in  the  light  of  such  teaching  ends,  the 
pupils  who  stay  through  the  upper  years  and  to  graduate  have 
more  failures  in  certain  subjects  than  the  non-graduates  who 
more  generally  escape  the  advanced  classes  of  these  subjects. 
The  traditional  standards  of  the  high  school  simply  do  not  meet 
the  dominant  needs  of  the  pupils  either  in  the  subject-content 
or  in  the  methods  employed.  Some  of  these  traditional  methods 
and  studies  are  the  means  of  working  disappointment  and  prob- 
ably of  inculcating  a  genuine  disgust  rather  than  of  furnish- 
ing a  valuable  kind  of  discipline.  The  school  must  provide 
more  than  a  single  treatment  for  all  cases.  In  each  subject 
there  must  be  many  kinds  of  treatment  for  the  different  cases 
in  order  to  secure  the  largest  growth  of  the  individuals  included. 
This  does  not  in  any  sense  necessitate  the  displacement  of 
thoroughness  by  superficiality  or  trifling,  but  on  the  contrary 
greater  thoroughness  may  be  expected  to  result,  as  helpful 
adaptations  of  method  and  of  matter  give  a  meaningful  and 
purposeful  motive  for  that  earnest  application  which  thorough- 
ness itself  demands. 


Do  Failures  Represent  Laek  of  Capabilityf  85 

Summary  of  Chapter  VI 

The  pupil  is  but  one  of  several  factors  involved  in  the  failure, 
yet  the  consequences  are  most  momentous  for  him. 

The  pupils  who  lack  native  ability  sufficient  for  the  work  are 
not  a  large  number. 

The  high  school  graduates  represent  about  a  1  in  9  selection 
of  the  elementary  school  entrants,  but  in  this  group  is  included 
as  high  a  percentage  of  the  failing  pupils  as  of  the  non-failing 
ones. 

The  success  of  the  failing  pupils  in  the  Regents'  examinations, 
and  also  in  their  repeating  with  extra  schedules,  bears  witness 
to  their  possession  of  ability  and  industry. 

In  the  semester  first  preceding  and  that  immediately  subse- 
quent to  the  failure,  72  per  cent  of  all  the  grades  are  passing, 
20  per  cent  are  A's  or  B's.     Many  of  them  "  can  if  they  will." 

The  early  elimination  of  pupils,  the  number  that  fail,  and  the 
notable  cases  of  non-success  in  school  are  evidence  of  some- 
thing wTong  with  the  kind  of  education. 

The  characteristic  culmination  of  failures  for  Latin  and  mathe- 
matics can  hardly  be  considered  a  part  of  the  pupils'  responsi- 
bility. 

Of  all  the  failures  68.5  per  cent  are  incurred  by  instances  of 
two  or  more  failures  in  the  same  subject. 

Much  maladjustment  of  the  subject  assignments  is  almost 
inevitable  by  a  prescribed  uniformity  of  the  same  content  and 
the  same  treatment  for  all. 

The  traditional  methods  and  emphasis  probably  account  for 
more  disappointment  and  disgust  than  for  valuable  discipline. 

References : 

1.  Maxwell,  W.  H.    A  Quarter  Century  of  Public  School  Development,  p.  88. 

2.  Van  Denburg,  J.  K.     The  Elimination  of  Pupils  from  Public  Secondary 

Schools,  p.  183. 

3.  Annual  Report  of  the  U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Education,  1917. 

4.  Thorndike,  E.  L.     Educational  Psychology,  Vol.  II,  Chap.  I. 

5.  Swift,  E.  J.     Mind  in  the  Making,  Chap.  I. 

6.  Thorndike,  E.  L.    Elimination  of  Pupils  from  School,  U.  S.  Bull.  4,  1907. 

7.  Meredith,  A.  B.    Survey  of  the  St.  Louis  Public  Schools.  1917,  Vol.  Ill, 

pp.  51,  40. 


CHAPTER  VII 

WHAT  TREATMENT  IS  SUGGESTED  BY  THE  DIAG- 
NOSIS OF  THE  FACTS  OF  FAILURE? 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to  formulate  conclusions 
that  are  arbitrary,  fixed,  or  all-complete.  There  are  definite 
reasons  why  that  should  not  be  attempted.  The  author  merely 
undertakes  to  apply  certain  well  recognized  and  widely  accepted 
principles  of  education  and  of  psychology,  as  among  the  more 
important  elements  recommending  themselves  to  him  in  any 
endeavor  to  derive  an  adequate  solution  for  the  situation  dis- 
closed in  the  preceding  chapters.  The  significance  of  those  pre- 
ceding chapters  in  reference  to  the  failures  of  the  high  school 
pupils  is  not  at  all  conditioned  by  this  final  chapter.  Since  as  a 
problem  of  research  the  findings  have  now  been  presented,  it  is  pos- 
sible that  others  may  find  the  basis  therein  for  additional  or  differ- 
ent conclusions  from  the  ones  suggested  here.  For  such  persons 
Chapter  VII  need  not  be  considered  an  inseparable  or  essenti- 
ally integral  part  of  this  report  on  the  field  of  the  research.  In- 
deed the  purpose  of  this  study  will  not  have  been  served  most 
fully  until  it  has  been  made  the  subject  of  dicussion  and  of 
criticism;  and  the  treatment  that  is  recommended  here  will  not 
necessarily  preclude  other  suggestions  in  the  general  effort  to 
devise  a  solution  or  solutions  that  are  the  most  satisfactory. 

It  appears  from  the  analysis  made  in  Chapter  VI  of  the  pupils' 
capability  and  fitness  relative  to  the  school  failures  that  it  is 
impossible  to  make  any  definite  apportionment  of  responsibility 
to  the  pupils,  until  we  have  first  frankly  faced  and  made  an 
effective  disposition  of  the  malfunctioning  and  misdirection  as 
found  in  the  school  itself.  It  does  not  follow  from  this  that 
any  radical  application  of  surgery  need  be  recommended,  but 
instead,  a  practical  and  extended  course  of  treatment  should  be 
prescribed,  which  will  have  due  regard  for  the  nature  and  loca- 

86 


What  Treatment  Is  Suggested  by  the  Diagnosis  of  Failure?     87 

tion  of  the  ills  to  be  remedied.  Anything  less  than  this  will 
seem  to  be  a  mere  external  salve  and  leave  untouched  the  chronic 
source  of  the  systematic  maladjustment.  It  is  not  assumed  that 
a  school  system  any  more  than  any  other  institution  or  machine 
can  be  operated  without  some  loss.  But  the  failure  of  the 
school  to  make  a  natural  born  linguist  pass  in  a  subject  of  tech- 
nical mathematics  is  perhaps  unfortunate  only  in  the  thing 
attempted  and  in  the  uselessness  of  the  effort. 

We  must  take  into  account  at  the  very  beginning  the  funda- 
mental truth  stated  by  Thorndike,^  that  "  achievement  is  a  meas- 
ure of  ability  only  if  the  conditions  are  equal."  Corollary  to 
that  is  the  fact  that  the  same  uniform  conditions  and  require- 
ments are  often  very  unequal  as  applied  to  different  individuals. 
The  equalization  of  educational  opportunity  does  not  at  all  mean 
the  same  duplicated  method  or  content  for  all.  That  interpretation 
will  controvert  the  very  spirit  and  purpose  of  the  principle  stated. 
Any  inflexible  scheme  which  attempts  to  fashion  all  children 
into  types,  according  to  preconceived  notions,  and  whose  per- 
petuity is  rooted  in  a  psychology  based  on  the  uniformity  of  the 
human  mind,  simply  must  give  way  to  the  newer  conception 
which  harmonizes  with  the  psychic  laws  of  the  individual,  or 
else  continue  to  waste  much  time  and  energy  in  trying  to  force 
pupils  to  accomplish  those  things  for  which  they  have  neither 
the  capacity  nor  the  inclination.  It  is  accordingly  obligatory 
on  the  school  to  give  intelligent  and  responsive  recognition  to 
the  wide  differentiation  of  social  demands,  and  to  the  extent  and 
the  continuity  of  the  individual  differences  of  pupils. 

1.  Organization  and  Adaptation  in  Recognition  of  the  In- 
dividual Differences  in  Abilities  and  Interests 

If  the  school  failures  are  to  be  substantially  reduced,  the  teach- 
ing of  the  school  subjects  with  the  chief  emphasis  on  the  pupil 
must  surely  replace  the  practice  of  teaching  the  subjects  prim- 
arily for  their  own  sake.  This  *  subject  first '  treatment  must 
give  place  to  the  '  pupil  first '  idea.  No  subject  then  will  over- 
shadow the  pupil's  welfare,  and  the  pupil  will  not  be  subjected 
to  the  subject.  Education  in  terms  of  subject-matter  is  well  de- 
signed to  produce  a  large  crop  of  failures.     Neither  the  addition 


88     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

or  subtraction  of  subjects  is  urged  primarily,  but  the  adaptation 
and  utilization  of  the  school  agencies  so  as  to  make  the  pupils  as 
efficient  and  as  productive  as  possible,  by  recognizing  first  of  all 
their  essential  lack  of  uniformity  in  reference  to  capacities  and 
interests, — not  only  as  between  different  individuals,  but  in  the 
same  individual  at  dififerent  ages,  at  different  stages  of  maturity, 
and  in  different  kinds  of  subjects.  This  conception  precludes  the 
school  employment  of  subjects  and  methods  for  all  alike  which 
are  obviously  better  adapted  to  the  younger  than  to  the  older. 
Neither  does  it  overlook  the  fact  that  the  attitude  of  more  mature 
pupils  toward  authority  and  discipline  is  essentialy  different  from 
that  of  the  younger  boys  and  girls ;  that  a  subject  congenial  to 
some  pupils  will  be  intolerable  and  nearly  if  not  quite  impossible 
for  others ;  or  that  an  appeal  designed  mainly  to  reach  the  girls 
will  not  reach  boys  equally  well.  In  brief,  the  treatment  pro- 
posed here  is  neither  radical  nor  novel,  but  it  is  simply  the  institu- 
tion of  applied  psychology  as  pertaining  to  school  procedure. 
What  the  more  modern  experimental  psychology  has  established 
must  be  utilized  in  the  school,  at  the  expense  of  the  more  obsolete 
and  traditional.  Psychology  now  generally  recognizes  the  ex- 
istence of  what  the  general  school  procedure  implies  does  not 
exist,  namely,  the  wide  range  of  individual  differences. 

The  situation  clearly  demands  that  our  public  schools  shall  not, 
by  clinging  to  precedent  and  convention,  fall  notably  behind  in- 
dustry and  government  in  appropriating  the  fruits  of  modern 
scientific  research.  As  the  doctor  varies  the  diet  to  the  needs 
of  each  patient  and  each  affliction,  so  must  the  school  serve  the 
intellectual  and  social  needs  of  the  pupils  by  such  an  organiza- 
tion and  attitude  that  the  selection  of  subjects  for  each  pupil  may 
take  an  actual  and  specific  regard  of  the  individual  to  be  served. 
The  change  all  important  is  not  necessarily  in  the  school  sub- 
ject or  curriculum,  but  rather  a  change  in  the  attitude  as  to 
how  a  subject  shall  be  presented — to  whom  and  by  whom.  The 
latter  will  also  determine  the  character  of  the  pupil's  response 
and  the  subject's  educational  value  to  him.  By  securing  a 
genuine  response  from  the  pupils  a  subject  or  course  of  study  is 
thereby  translated  into  pupil  achievement  and  human  results. 
The  authority  of  the  school  is  impotent  to  get  these  results  by 
merely  commanding  them  or  by  requiring  all  to  pursue  the  same 


What  Treatment  Is  Suggested  by  the  Diagnosis  of  Failure?    89 

subject.  An  experience,  in  order  to  have  trul)'  educational  value, 
must  come  within  the  range  of  the  pupils  comprehension  and 
interest.  Quoting  Newman,^  "  To  get  the  most  out  of  an  ex- 
perience there  must  be  more  or  less  understanding  of  its  better 
possibilities.  The  social  and  ethical  implications  must  some- 
where and  at  some  time  be  lifted  very  definitely  into  conscious 
understanding  and  volition."  The  pupil's  responsiveness  is  then 
much  more  important  both  for  securing  results  and  for  reducing 
failures  than  is  any  subject  content  or  method  that  is  not  effective 
in  securing  a  tolerable  and  satisfying  sort  of  mental  activity. 

2.     Faculty  Student  Advisers  from  the  Time  of  Entrance 

Not  only  the  failure  of  pupils  in  their  school  subjects  but  the 
failure  also  of  13  per  cent  of  them  to  remain  in  school  even  to 
the  end  of  the  first  semester,  or  of  23.1  per  cent  to  remain  beyond 
the  first  semester  (Tables  V  and  VI) — of  whom  a  relatively  small 
number  had  failed  (about  34) — rnake  a  strong  appeal  for  the  ap- 
pointment of  sympathetic  and  helpful  teachers  as  student  advisers 
from  the  very  time  of  their  entrance.  One  teacher  is  able  to 
provide  personal  advice  and  educational  guidance  for  from  20  to 
30  pupils.  The  right  type  of  teachers,  their  early  appointment, 
and  the  keeping  of  some  sort  of  confidential  and  unofficial  record, 
all  seem  highly  important. 

Superintendent  Maxwell  mentioned  among  the  reasons  why 
pupils  leave  school''  that  "  they  become  bewildered,  sometimes 
scared,  by  the  strange  school  atmosphere  and  the  aloofness  of  the 
high  school  teachers."  There  is  a  strangeness  that  is  found  in 
the  transition  to  high  school  surroundings  and  to  high  school 
work  which  certainly  should  not  be  augmented  by  any  further 
handicap  for  the  pupil.  There  are  no  fixed  limitations  to  what 
helpfulness  the  advisers  may  render  in  the  way  of  '  a  big  brother  ' 
or  *  big  sister '  capacity.  It  is  all  incidental  and  supplementary 
in  form,  but  of  inestimable  value  to  the  pupils  and  the  school.  A 
further  service  that  is  far  more  unusual  than  difficult  may  be 
performed  by  the  pupils  who  are  not  new,  in  the  way  of  remov- 
ing strangeness  for  those  who  are  entering  what  seems  to  them 
a  sort  of  new  esoteric  cult  in  the  high  school.  The  girls  of  the 
Washington  Irving  High  School^   of   New  York  City  recently 


90    School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

put  into  practice  a  plan  to  give  a  personal  welcome  to  each  entering 
girl,  and  a  personal  escort  for  the  first  hour,  including  the  regis- 
tration and  a  tour  of  the  building,  in  addition  to  some  friendly 
inquiries,  suggestions,  and  introductions.  The  pupil  is  then  more 
at  home  in  meeting  the  teachers  later.  Here  is  the  sort  of 
courtesy  introduced  into  the  school  that  commercial  and  business 
houses  have  learned  to  practice  to  avoid  the  loss  of  either  present 
or  prospective  customers.  Some  day  the  school  must  learn  more 
fully  that  the  faith  cure  is  much  cheaper  than  surgery  and  less 
painful  as  well. 


3.  Greater  Flexibility  and  Differentiation  Required 

The  recognition  of  individual  differences  urged  in  section  1 
necessitates  a  differentiation  and  a  flexibility  of  the  high  school 
curriculum  that  is  limited  only  by  the  social  and  individual  needs 
to  be  served,  the  size  of  the  school,  and  the  availability  of  means. 
The  rigid  inflexibility  of  the  inherited  course  of  study  has  con- 
tributed perhaps  more  than  its  full  share  to  the  waste  product  of 
the  educational  machinery.  The  importance  of  this  change  from 
compulsion  and  rigidity  toward  greater  flexibility  has  already 
received  attention  and  commendation.  One  authority*  states  that 
"  one  main  cause  of  (H.  S.)  elimination  is  incapacity  for  and  lack 
of  interest  in  the  sort  of  intellectual  work  demanded  by  the 
present  courses  of  study,"  and  further  that  "  specialization  of 
instruction  for  different  pupils  within  one  class  is  needed  as  well 
as  specialization  of  the  curriculum  for  different  classes."  There 
must  be  less  of  the  assumption  that  the  pupils  are  made  for  the 
schools,  whose  regime  they  must  fit  or  else  fail  repeatedly  where 
they  do  not  fit.  Theoretically  considerable  progress  has  already 
been  made  in  the  differentiation  of  curricula,  but  in  practice  the 
opportunity  that  is  offered  to  the  pupils  to  profit  thereby  is  cur- 
tailed, because  of  the  rigid  organization  of  courses  and  the  uni- 
form requirements  that  are  dictated  by  administrative  conveni- 
ence or  by  the  college  entrance  needs  of  the  minority.  The  only 
permissible  limitations  to  the  variables  of  the  curriculum  should 
be  such  as  aim  to  secure  a  reasonable  continuity  and  sequence  of 
subjects  in  one  or  more  of  the  fields  selected.  One  of  the  chief 
barriers  to  a  more  general  flexibility  has  been  the  notion  of 


What  Treatment  Is  Suggested  by  the  Diagnosis  of  Failure f    91 

inequality  between  the  classical  and  all  other  types  of  education. 
This  assumption  has  had  its  foundations  heavily  shaken  of  late. 
The  quality  of  response  which  it  elicits  has  come  to  receive  a 
precedence  over  the  name  by  which  a  subject  happens  to  be  classi- 
fied. "  France  has  come  out  boldly  and  recognized  at  least  offici- 
ally the  exact  parity  between  the  scientific  education  and  the 
classical  education."  °  Indeed  one  may  doubt  whether  this  parity 
will  ever  again  be  seriously  questioned,  because  of  the  elevation 
of  scientific  training  and  accomplishment  in  the  great  world  war, 
as  well  as  in  its  adaptation  for  the  direct  and  purposeful  dealing 
with  the  problems  of  modern  life.  Especially  for  the  early 
classes  in  the  high  school  does  the  situation  demand  a  relatively 
flexible  curriculum,  else  the  only  choice  will  be  to  drop  out  to 
escape  drudgery  or  failure.  Inglis  maintains  that  the  selective 
function  of  the  high  school  may  operate  by  a  process  of  differ- 
entiation rather  than  by  a  wholesale  elimination.®  The  pupil 
surely  cannot  know  in  advance  what  he  is  best  fitted  for,  but  the 
school  must  help  him  find  that  out,  if  it  is  to  render  a  very  valu- 
able service,  and  one  at  all  comparable  to  the  success  of  the 
industrial  expert  in  utilizing  his  material  and  in  minimizing  waste. 
The  junior  high  school  especially  aims  to  perform  this  function 
that  is  so  slighted  in  the  senior  high  school.  Yet  neither  the 
organization  nor  the  purpose  of  the  two  are  so  far  apart  as  to 
excuse  the  helplessness  of  the  latter  in  this  important  duty. 

There  is  apparently  no  constitutional  impediment  to  a  still  fur- 
ther extension  of  the  principle  of  flexibility  and  to  the  minimizing 
of  loss  by  what  has  been  a  costly  trial  and  error  method  of  fitting 
the  pupils  and  the  subjects  to  each  other.  Short  unit  courses 
are  not  unfamiliar  in  certain  educational  fields,  and  they  lend 
themselves  very  readily  to  definite  and  specific  needs.  Their  use- 
fulness may  be  regarded  as  a  warrant  of  a  wider  adoption  of 
them.  Although  they  are  as  yet  employed  mainly  for  an  inten- 
sive form  of  training  or  instruction  to  meet  specific  needs  of  a 
particular  group  in  a  limited  time,^  the  principle  of  their  use  is 
no  longer  novel.  A  unit  course  of  an  extensive  nature  is  also 
conceivable,  for  instance,  a  semester  of  any  subject  entitled  to 
two  credits  might  allow  a  division  into  two  approximately  equal 
portions.  If  then  both  teacher  and  pupil  feel,  when  one  unit  is 
completed,  that  the  pupil  is  in  the  wrong  subject  or  that  his  work 


92    School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

is  hopeless  in  that  subject,  he  might  be  permitted  to  withdraw 
and  be  charged  with  a  failure  of  only  one  point,  that  is,  just  one- 
half  the  failure  of  a  semester's  work  in  the  subject — or  one-fourth 
that  for  a  whole  year  with  no  semester  divisions.  Even  if  this 
scheme  would  not  work  equally  well  in  all  subjects,  it  implies  no 
extensive  reorganization  to  employ  it  in  the  ones  adapted.  It  is 
not  incredible  that,  as  the  people  more  generally  understand  that 
physics,  chemistry,  and  biology  have  become  vital  to  national 
self-preservation  and  social  well-being,  their  emphasis  as  subjects 
required  or  as  subjects  sought  by  most  of  the  pupils  may  lead  to 
a  high  percentage  of  failures,  such  as  is  found  for  Latin  and 
mathematics  usually,  or  for  science  as  reported  in  St.  Louis, 
where  it  was  required  of  all  and  yielded  the  highest  percentage 
of  failures.  Now  the  teaching  of  most  sciences  by  the  unit  plan 
will  comprise  no  greater  difficulty  than  is  involved  in  overcoming 
text-book  methods  and  the  conservatism  of  convention.  The  pro- 
ject device,  as  employed  in  vocational  education,  will  also  lend 
itself  in  many  instances  to  the  unit  division  of  work.  The  first 
consequence  of  this  plan  will  be  a  reduction  of  failures  for  the 
pupil  in  those  subjects  whose  continued  pursuit  would  mean 
increased  failure.  The  second  consequence  may  be  to  relieve 
teachers  of  hopeless  cases  of  misfit  in  any  subject,  for  if  the  pupils 
no  longer  have  intolerable  subjects  imposed  on  them  the  teachers 
will  come  to  demand  only  tolerable  work  in  the  subjects  of  their 
choice.  The  third  consequence  will  probably  be  to  encourage 
pupils  to  find  themselves  by  trying  out  subjects  at  less  risk  of 
such  cumulative  failures  as  are  disclosed  in  section  3  of  the  pre- 
ceding chapter.  , 

4.  Provision  for  the  Direction  of  the  Pupils'  Study 

The  forms  of  treatment  suggested  in  the  first  three  sections 
of  this  chapter  for  the  diminution  of  failures  will  find  their 
natural  culmination  of  effectiveness  in  a  plan  for  helping  the 
pupils  to  help  themselves.  This  has  been  notably  lacking  in  most 
school  practice.  Every  improvement  of  the  school  adaptation 
still  assumes  that  the  pupils  are  to  apply  themselves  to  honest, 
thorough  study.  But  the  high  school  must  bear  in  mind  that 
good  studying  implies  good  teaching.  It  cannot  be  trusted  to 
intuition  or  to  individual  discovery.     Real,  earnest  studying  is 


What  Treatment  Is  Suggested  by  the  Diagnosis  of  Failure f    93 

hard  work.  The  teachers  have  usually  presupposed  habits  of 
study  on  the  part  of  the  pupils,  but  one  of  the  important  lessons 
for  the  school  to  teach  the  pupil  is  how  to  use  his  mind  and  his 
books  effectively  and  efficiently.  Even  the  simplest  kinds  of  ap- 
prenticeship instruct  the  novice  in  the  use  of  each  device  and  in 
the  handling  of  each  tool  to  a  degree  which  the  school  most  often 
disregards  when  requiring  the  pupil  to  use  even  highly  abstract 
and  complex  instrumentalities.  The  practice  of  the  school  almost 
glorifies  drudgery  as  a  genuine  virtue.  E.  R.  Breslich  refers  to 
this  fact,*  saying,  "  so  it  happens  that  the  preparation  for  the 
classwork,  not  the  classwork  itself  burdens  the  lives  of  the 
pupils."  The  indefensibleness  of  the  indiscriminate  lesson  giving 
consists  in  the  fact  that  it  is  not  the  load  but  the  harness  that  is 
too  heavy.  The  harness  is  more  exhausting  and  burdensome 
than  the  load  appointed.  The  destination  sought  and  the  course 
to  be  followed  in  the  lesson  preparation  are  very  many  times  not 
clearly  indicated,  lest  the  discipline,  negative  and  repressive 
though  it  be,  should  be  extracted  from  the  struggle.  The  fact 
is  that  discouragement  and  failure  are  too  often  the  best  of  testi- 
mony that  teachers  are  not  much  concerned  about  how  the  pupil 
employs  his  time  or  books  in  studying  a  lesson.  The  point  is 
illustrated  admirably  by  the  report  in  the  Ladies  Home  Journal, 
for  January,  1913,  of  a  request  from  a  hardworking  widow  that 
the  teacher  of  one  of  her  children  in  school  try  teaching  the  child 
instead  of  just  hearing  the  lessons  which  the  mother  had  taught. 
Directing  the  pupils'  study  is  sometimes  regarded  as  a  more 
or  less  formalized  scheme  of  organization  and  procedure,  which 
requires  extra  time,  extra  teachers,  and  a  lesser  degree  of 
independence  on  the  part  of  the  pupils.  But  here  too  the  important 
things  are  differentiation  and  specific  direction  as  adapted  to  the 
needs  of  the  subject,  the  topic  or  the  pupils.  It  must  be  insisted 
that  supervised  study  is  not  the  same  thing  in  all  schools,  in  all 
subjects,  or  for  all  pupils.  In  other  words,  its  very  purpose 
is  defeated  if  it  is  overformalized.  An  experiment  is  reported 
by  J.  H.  Minnick  with  two  classes  in  plane  geometry,"  of 
practically  the  same  size,  ability,  and  time  allowance  for  study, 
which  indicated  that  the  supervised  pupils  were  the  less  depend- 
ent as  judged  by  their  success  in  tests  consisting  of  new  problems. 
The  pupils  also  liked  the  method,  in  spite  of  their  early  opposi- 
tion, and  no  one  failed,  while  two  of   the  unsupervised  class 


94     School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

failed.  William  Wiener  also  speaks  of  the  wonderful  self- 
control  which  springs  from  the  supervised  study  program. ^"^ 
As  to  the  need  of  extra  teachers  for  the  purpose  there  is  not 
much  real  agreement,  since  the  plans  of  adaptaion  are  so  differ- 
ent in  themselves.  Increased  labor  for  the  same  teachers  will 
rightly  imply  greater  renumeration.  Colvin  makes  mention 
of  the  additional  expense  imposed  by  the  larger  force  of  teachers 
required."  But  J.  S.  Brown  finds  that  the  failures  are  so 
largely  reduced  that  with  fewer  repeaters  there  is  a  consequent 
saving  in  the  teaching  force. ^^  With  a  faculty  of  66  teachers, 
he  reports  38  classes  in  which  there  was  no  failure,  and  a  marked 
reduction  of  failures  in  general  by  the  use  of  supervised  study. 
It  is  interesting  and  significant  to  note  here  that  by  allowing  100 
daily  pupil  recitations  to  the  teacher  the  repeated  subjects  re- 
ported in  this  study  would  require  87  teachers  for  one  semester 
or  11  teachers  for  the  full  four  years.  This  fact  represents 
more  than  $50,000  in  salaries  alone.  Buildings,  equipment,  heat, 
and  other  expenses  will  more  than  double  the  amount.  But 
such  expense  is  incomparable  with  what  the  pupils  pay  in  time, 
in  struggles,  and  in  disappointment  in  order  to  succeed  later 
in  only  66.7  per  cent  of  the  subjects  repeated.  As  none  of  the 
eight  schools  provided  anything  more  definite  than  a  general 
after  school  hour  for  offering  help,  and  which  often  has  a  puni- 
tive suggestion  to  it,  the  possibility  of  saving  many  of  these 
pupils  from  failure  and  repetition  by  the  wise  and  helpful  direc- 
tion of  their  study  is  simply  unmeasured.  A  conclusion  that  is 
particularly  encouraging  is  reported  by  W.  C.  Reavis  to  the  effect 
that  the  poorer  pupils — the  ones  who  most  need  the  direction — 
are  the  ones  that  supervised  study  helps  the  most.^^  There  is 
nothing  novel  in  saying  that  good  teaching  and  good  studying 
are  but  different  aspects  of  the  same  process,  but  it  would  be 
an  innovation  to  find  this  conception  generally  realized  in  the 
school  practice. 

5.  A  Greater  Recognition  and  Exposition  of  the  Facts  As 
Revealed  by  Accurate  and  Complete  School  Records 

It  is  unfortunate  that  the  detailed  and  complete  records  which 
tell  the  whole  story  about  the  failures  in  the  school  and  for 
the  individual  are  found  in  relatively  few  schools,  even  when 


What  Treatment  Is  Suggested  by  the  Diagnosis  of  Failure?    95 

on  all  sides  business  enterprises  find  a  complete  system  of  de- 
tailed records,  filed  and  indexed,  altogether  indispensable  for 
their  intelligent  operation  and  administration.  The  school  still 
proceeds  in  its  sphere  too  much  by  chance  and  faith,  forgetting 
mistakes  and  recalling  successes.  This  is  possible  because  there 
is  no  question  of  self-support  or  of  solvency  to  face,  and  because 
neither  the  teachers  nor  the  institution  are  in  danger  of  direct 
financial  loss  by  their  waste,  duplication,  or  failures.  In  the 
absence  of  records  it  is  always  possible  to  calmly  assume  that 
the  facts  are  not  so  bad  as  for  other  schools  which  do  report 
their  recorded  facts.  The  prevailing  unfamiliarity  with  statis- 
tical methods  may  also  favor  a  skepticism  as  to  their  proper 
appHcation  to  education,  since  it  is  not  an  exact  science.  But 
the  fact  remains  established  that  it  is  always  possible  to  measure 
qualitative  diflferences  if  stated  in  terms  of  their  quantitative 
amounts. 

Admirable  and  complete  as  are  the  records  for  the  many  schools 
of  the  minority  group  possessing  them,  their  more  general  value 
and  information  are  still  quite  securely  hidden  away  in  the  files 
which  contain  them.  Peculiarly  interesting  was  the  surprise 
expressed  by  the  principals  at  the  extensive  and  significant 
information  which  their  own  school  records  provided,  when  they 
received  individual  reports  on  the  data  collected  and  tabulated 
for  this  study.  Yet  they  received  only  the  portions  of  the 
tabulations  which  seemed  most  likely  to  interest  them.  The 
principals  do  not  have  the  time  or  the  assistance  to  study  in 
a  collective  way  the  facts  which  are  provided  by  their  own  rec- 
ords, but  they  are  entitled  to  much  credit  for  so  courteously  co- 
operating with  any  competent  person  for  utilizing  their  records 
for  approved  purposes  and  in  turn  sharing  their  results  with 
the  school.  To  proceed  wisely  in  the  administration  of  the 
school  we  must  have  a  chance  to  know  and  discuss  the  facts. 
It  is  not  possible  to  know  the  facts  without  adequate  records. 
The  absence  of  evidence  gives  prominence  to  opinion  and  pre- 
cedent. Accordingly,  it  is  entirely  incredible  that  the  number, 
the  repetition,  and  the  accumulation  of  failures  would  remain 
unchanged  after  a  fair  exposition  and  discussion  of  the  evidence 
presented  in  a  collective  and  comprehensive  form.  It  may  be  neces- 
sary to  admit  that  a  few  teachers  will  hold  opinions  so  strong 
that  they  will  discredit  all  testimony  not  in   support  of   such 


96    School  Records  of  Pupils  Failing  in  High  School  Subjects 

opinions.  But  the  high  school  teachers  in  general  seem  fairly 
and  earnestly  disposed,  even  about  revising  their  notions  con- 
cerning the  truth  in  any  situation.  In  regard  to  the  relative 
number  and  time  of  the  failures,  the  actual  and  relative  success 
in  repeated  work,  the  advantage  of  repetition  for  later  work, 
the  relation  of  success  to  the  size  of  the  schedule,  the  influence 
of  the  number  of  failures  on  graduation,  and  numbers  of  other 
vital  facts,  it  could  be  said  of  the  teachers  in  general  that  they 
simply  knew  not  what  they  were  doing.  They  even  thought 
they  were  doing  what  they  were  not.  The  school  records  must 
be  disclosed  and  utilized  more  fully  if  their  value  and  import- 
ance are  to  be  realized.  It  will  be  a  large  source  of  satisfaction 
if  this  report  helps  to  direct  attention  to  the  official  school  records, 
from  which  a  frequent  '  trial  balance  '  will  help  to  rectify  and 
clarify  the  school  practice.     Both  are  needed. 

Summary  of  Chapter  VII 

The  contributing  factors  found  in  the  school  must  first  be 
remedied,  before  responsibility  for  the  failures  can  be  fairly 
apportioned  to  the  pupils. 

The  provision  of  uniform  conditions  for  all  is  based  on  the 
false  doctrine  of  the  uniformity  of  the  human  mind.  Such 
conditions  may  prove  very  unequal  for  some  individuals,  and 
achievement  is  not  then  a  real  measure  of  ability. 

By  applying  a  functioning  psychology  to  school  practice,  more 
adaptation  and  specialization  are  required  to  meet  the  individual 
diff^erences  of  pupils. 

No  change  of  subjects  is  in  general  necessitated,  but  a  change 
of  the  attitude  which  subjects  pupils  to  the  subjects  seems 
essential. 

The  genuineness  of  the  pupil's  response  depends  on  the  pupil 
and  the  subject.  A  policy  of  coercion  will  usually  beget  only 
dislike  or  failure. 

Properly  selected  student  advisers,  appointed  early,  may  trans- 
form the  school  for  the  pupil,  save  the  pupil  for  the  school,  and 
his  work  from  failures.  » 

A  relatively  high  degree  of  flexibility  and  specialization  of 
the  curriculum  will  help  the  pupil  find  what  he  is  best  fitted 


What  Treatment  Is  Suggested  by  the  Diagnosis  of  Failure  f    97 

for,  and  thereby  minimize  waste.  This  will  include  a  virtual 
parity  between  the  classical   and   scientific  subjects. 

The  reduction  of  some  subjects  to  smaller  units  will  tend  to 
facilitate  flexibility  and  a  reduction  of  failures. 

The  provision  of  directed  study  will  help  the  pupils  to  help 
themselves.  Good  teaching  demands  it.  The  harness  is  often 
heavier  than  the  load.     Failures  are  inevitable. 

The  plan  of  study  direction  must  be  varied  according  to  the 
varying  needs  of  pupils,  subjects,  and  schools.  The  poorer 
pupils  are  aided  most.  They  are  made  even  more  reliant  on 
themselves.  The  reduction  of  failures  tends  to  balance  any 
added  expense. 

Records  adequate  and  complete  should  be  a  part  of  the  busi- 
ness and  educational  equipment  of  every  school.  The  exposi- 
tion and  use  of  these  facts  as  recorded  will  then  give  direction 
to  school  progress,  and  dethrone  the  authority  of  assumption 
and  opinion. 

References: 

1.  Thorndike,  E.  L.    Individuality,  pp.  38,  51. 

2.  Neuman,   H.     Moral    Values  in  Secondary   Education,  United  States 

Bureau  of  Education  Bulletin,  No.  51.  1917,  pp.  18,  17. 

3.  Maxwell,   W.   H.     A   Quarter  Century  of  Public  School  Development, 

p.  89. 

4.  Thorndike,  E.  L.    The  Elimination  of  Pupils  from  School,  U.  S.  Bureau 

of  Education  Bulletin,  No.  4.  1907,  p.  10. 

5.  Farrington,  F.  E.     French  Secondary  Schools,  p.  124. 

6.  Inglis,  A.     Principles  of  Secondary  Education,  p.  669. 

7.  Committee  of  N.  E.  A.     Vocational  Secondary  Education,  U.  S.  Bureau 

of  Education  Bulletin  No.  21,  1916,  p.  58. 

8.  Breslich,  E.  R.   Supervised  Study  as  Supplementary  Instruction,  Thirteenth 

Yearbook,  p.  43. 

9    Minnick,   J.   H.     "  The   Supervised   Study  of  Mathematics,"  School 
Review,  21-670. 

10.  Wiener,  W.     "  Home  Study  Reform,"  School  Review,  20-526. 

11.  Colvin,  S.  S.     An  Introduction  to  High  School  Teaching,  p.  366. 

12.  Brown,  J.  S.    School  and  Home  Education,  February,  1915,  p.  207. 

13.  Reavis,  W.  C.     "  Supervised  Study,"  in  Parker's  Methods  of  Teaching 

in  the  High  School,  p.  398. 


M^ 


of  CaWornia,  Los  Angeles 


L006  010  763  8 


D    000716913    9 


